Awhile back I decided to apply for a top-tier raiding gear in WoW. I had, more or less, maxed out my character pre-raiding and wanted to take the next step into the game.

Unfortunately, I took this opportunity to be brutally honest, and I’m pretty sure I left an entire guild of players bewildered and laughing hysterically . . . or emotionally damaged.

Nonetheless, I am going to share with you my actual application.

The names have been changed to protect the stupid.

Character Name: SnugglePants

Level: This is a stupid question, anyone applying to raid is going to be max level or is too stupid/lazy to join the guild. Or they are a friend of a friend or something and they are going to be recruited/let in the guild regardless of this pointless application.

Spec and Gear (please link your armory profile): wowarmory.com/SomeOtherDudesBetterGear

This part is also sort of pointless, when I’m not raiding, I’m PvPing . . . so my gear and spec (per the armory) is completely wrong. You have no way to find out by this application if my gear is good enough. Just to let you know, I’m in S4 MS Warrior gear and I only have Kara/Gruul’s tanking gear (and some ZA crap).

Crafting Professions: I’m a plate wearing tank, so naturally I have tailoring and herbalism, that’s the best combo right? Right!?!

Play time(s): Every 2nd Tuesday in the first week of every 13th month. That’s right I gave you a damn math problem, how do you like it?

Alt Characters: I wouldn’t tell you these, ever. I don’t want any of you creepy mofos stalking my ass around the game. Besides, if you know my alts, then you just whisper me every 15 minutes about raid shit when I just want to level my level 8 Blood Elf. So no, screw you, I’m not saying shit here.

Tell us about yourself: I’d rather not. The less we know about each other, the better, because in the long run you (or me) will probably do or say something so profoundly stupid or rude that some part of the other person dies inside and we are forced to carry the scar tissue for the rest of our lives.

Can you bring your own consumables/Can you afford repairs?: I could, but why would I when you’ll provide them. I mean, seriously, why should I spend time farming crap when I know you are going to have an extra 10 pots just in case someone forgets. I’m doing you a favor and letting you know ahead of time . . . I forgot.

What can you bring to the guild?: Finally, an honest question. You finally got to the point of this application process. It isn’t to get to know me, it isn’t to make friends, it isn’t anything more than what can I do for you. The answer: probably nothing that the other 20 applicants can’t do just as badly. That’s right, badly. I guarantee you idiots take someone with better gear and a better attitude and that motherfucker stands in the fire every god damn time. I’m not bringing anything to the guild. I’m using the guild to get shit for myself (namely gear and the experience), and anyone who says otherwise in their application is a liar, and you know it.

Do you know anyone in the guild?: I met the guild leader about a week ago. He seemed like a complete and utter douchebag, which usually means his raid guild is downing bosses left and right. So, based on that assumption and the fact that he was in the LFG channel asking for tanks, I decided to find your website and post my application.

Anything you want to add?: I have a list of questions for the guild. If I may:

How long does it take vent chat to devolve into sexual innuendos and racist slurs? (In minutes if applicable, or seconds if it is easier)

How many times a night will an officer or Guild Leader wipe the raid and blame it on someone else (lower in rank, of course), cursing them out publicly, before moving on and doing the same thing again?

What sort of fucked up loot rules do you idiots use? I assume it has something to do with people with no lives always getting the best loot while people who have actual sex with other real people get shit. That’s the usual loot system.

If I’m going to be treated like an employee at a second job, what is the pay like, what are the benefits of this job?

Signed,

Snugglepants

I was contacted by the Guild Leader and informed that: After careful consideration and debate, they decided to pass on my application, but wish me the best of luck elsewhere.

Yeah, whatever, fuck you, nerds.

Broken trust can almost never be regained.

Now, I don’t know if this comic is a reflection on their real life because frankly they swap the two out all willy-nilly whenever they run out of ideas (which is often). However, I do know one thing. You will never trust her completely again. Ever. You simply won’t. There will always be that little bit of doubt in the back of your mind for the rest of your relationship, regardless of what she does to “regain” your trust. Best case scenario is that you finally learn to trust her enough for it to be mostly a non-issue. However, for the most part, you will never trust her again and she will know you don’t trust her.

You are better off just ending the relationship and moving on now, because this is going to end eventually and you are just dragging it on longer than it needs to be.

How is this related to video games? Nintendo.

I’m severing my relationship with Nintendo. I’m selling both my Wii and Gamecube and every game I own for both systems.

Why, you might ask?

Because Nintendo has lost my trust. They’ve lost my trust, my respect, and my money. It didn’t happen overnight, as if they cheated on me. No, it was a long, drawn-out process in selling me out for “casuals”, kids, and grandmas.

It all started with the Gamecube. The Gamecube was, really, a piece of shit system. But, I was willing to let that slide because it was Nintendo and they always make the best games (at the time, my best gaming memories came from the N64). I could overlook the graphic setbacks, the lower processing power, the weird little discs, and the retarded controllers for the games. I really could, and did. I owned more Gamecube games than by Xbox or my PS2 (at the time – eventually the PS2 won out). Sure, the Gamecube had plenty of crappy games (Super Mario Sunshine), but there were equally good ones (Metriod Prime).

I even enjoyed the DS. Yes, two screens was just a gimmick, but it was a fun gimmick and you made it work. Then, of course, the games are what drove the system. Nothing could compete with the DS library of awesome. I even played Cooking Mama for hours on end.

But then, Nintendo decided to expand its customer base. And by “expand” I mean “find a new one and fuck over the existing one”.

Enter . . . the Wii. The Wii was, at first, something really, really interesting. I admit, I thought it would revolutionize gaming by making it more interactive. I was sadly mistaken.

I have yet to find a game that controls better on the Wii (or even controls at all on the Wii) than on the PC, 360 or PS3. The controls are just one problem. I never got into the spirit of relearning 20 years of video gaming so that I could play remakes of old Nintendo games. I never enjoyed flailing my arms in the arm for hours trying to figure out just which special combination of movements the controller wanted me to do.

But that doesn’t matter because the Wii only has two fucking games. Two, Super Mario Galaxy – or as I call it “Carpal Tunnel Mario” - and Twilight Princess – or as I call it “Better on the Gamecube Zelda”. That’s it. The rest are either mindless “party” games that your parents would probably enjoy or remakes of old shit. Seriously, another Metriod? And, oh my god, it’s exactly the same as the last 2, how did you know that was exactly what I always wanted? Oh wait, it gets better? The controls fucking blow worse now than they did on the Gamecube? Happy day!

The games library for the Wii sucks. It doesn’t even compare to the PS3 library . . . and that library sucks. The only reason the 360 is in second place right now, is because of the games. Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Fable 2, Mass Effect, Bioshock, and all the cross platform games that they’ve “stolen” from being exclusive, namely the Final Fantasy franchise . . . and just about every other J-RPG release.

And now, the DS is getting a make-over. Let me translate the press release for the new DS.

“We are making a new DS so that we can charge you again for a system you already purchased. However, this one is slightly better, just a little bit. And to make sure you have to buy this shit again, all new games will only work on the new one. The games won’t look any better or play any better, but they’ll have a special “FUCK YOU” code it them that makes them only compatible with the new DS. In fact, why don’t you just sign over your paycheck to us now and then bend over so we can screw you in the ass at the same time.”

On top of that, the “new” Wii games . . . are more fucking remakes! Jesus fucking christ! Your big announcement is you added Wii controls to fucking Pikmin?!?!

So, after a long battle with my inner Nintendo demon who still has the smallest hope that the company will realize that it was gamers like me who paid their fucking bills for the past 15 years, I have decided to return Nintendo’s favor. I’m selling my Wii and buying 360 and PC games with the money.

The best part is that I can actually get more than retail for the fucking thing this holiday season on Ebay, so I’m actually going to make a damn profit from this whole messed up relationship. Of course, that profit will quickly be handed over to Microsoft and Valve via 360 games and Steam, but hey, at least I’m rid of that damned white box from hell.

I read an article today about one poor shmucks reasons for leaving WoW. It got me thinking about my own reasons for scorning Blizzard. I must say that I do agree with a couple of the authors points but others just make him sound like a Warhammer Online fanboy, namely WAR being the #1 reason he left WoW.

I didn’t leave WoW for any specific MMO but many individuals do. They have a “grass is greenier” outlook on the other games in the genre and are usually wrong. The reason so many games are called “WoW clones” or “WoW wannabes” is because the genre is pretty standard by now. Almost every MMO has the same basic formula and only minor adjusts are made between them. Gamers use WoW as the gauge because WoW is the largest, most widely accepted and profitable game and because WoW has implemented (or plans to implement) everything from every game ever made.

It’s what Blizzard does. They don’t have a creative bone in their body. But, they are extremely good at taking interesting and fun aspects of other games and melding them into WoW (sometimes outright stealing them and copy/pasting). In most cases, WoW is copying another game, like EQ2 for example. However, since 10 million people play WoW, most of them have only ever played WoW, and only 500,000 or so play EQ2 – the truth is flipped. “EQ2 is copying WoW”, even though EQ2 actually came out first and EQ2 is actually copying EQ1 . . . which is the same place WoW got most of its ideas.

I’m sort of rambling here now so I’ll just get right to the list.

#10 PvP Balancing

WoW has never been a PvP-centric game but they have been trying to wedge it in for quite some time. It all began with Battlegrounds and now Arenas. It seemed that WoW was actually afraid of Warhammer Online, since they’ve been pushing Arenas extremely hard since WAR was announced. PvP has, for the most part, been mostly detrimental to the game. There is a constant battle between PvP-balancing and PvE-balancing and usually no one wins. This has become more and more obvious with Arenas, with are actually #6.

#9 Achievements

Why would achievements be a reason to leave the game? Addiction. I’ve played WoW for over 3 years and I can honestly say that at least 75% of everyone I’ve ever played the game with has been (or still is) addicted to the game. Achievements in WoW is like heroin on top of crack. Get out now while you still can. Xbox Live is a perfect example of what happens to gamers with achievements. I’ve seen grown men suffer through the most unbearable Xbox 360 games on the market . . . just to get the Gamer Points. I can only assume this trend would continue in WoW. Instead of removing or fixing long, boring, annoying quests, instances, or game mechanics . . . just make them achievements and everyone will plug along doing them thinking they are “earning” something for their suffering. I can see the corporate power’s evil grin from here.

My advice is get out while you still can.

#8 Grinds

To be honest, every MMO has some form of grind. That’s the basis for MMOs. That would be like a shooter without . . . shooting things. However, WoW takes it one step further by making everything a grind. Reputation, PvP Honor, Arenas, Raiding, Soloing, Farming, Crafting. Literally everything in the game has become one giant time sink that requires nothing but massive amounts of willing time dedicated to achieve the goal. No skill, no forethought, no planning, no brain is required to do anything in the game. It becomes rather mind-numbing at points.

I always get responses to this that being “good” in any of those areas requires skill, planning and a brain, and that may be true (especially for Arenas) but the fact remains that the “time commitment” aspect remains constant, regardless of anything else. If you can’t put in the time, regardless of skill, planning, wit, experience, or anything else, you will not succeed in the game. Time or nothing.

#7 Raiding

Raiding is becoming more and more of “elitists only” in the game than anything else. This is changing in Wrath with everything being both a 10-man and a 25-man. The raiding scene is WoW, at this current time, is nearly dead. Every raiding guild has been hit by the “but Wrath is just around the corner” bug. “Experiencing the content” reasoning only goes so far. Players want to progress their characters in meaningful ways. Spending 6 hours a night for two weeks to learn and down a boss for an item they know, for sure, they’ll upgrade in a 5 man instance in the upcoming expansion just doesn’t do it for most people. And because raiding requires these people to function properly (it requires the entire group to be ready and able), raiding has faded away.

It also doesn’t help that literally every MMO has “raiding” (to some extent) and it is very alive and well in other games such as LOTRO and EQ2 even with both of their expansions coming up.

#6 Arenas

For me, personally, Arenas ruined the game. I was more of a casual player who PvPed on and off, but because I knew how to play (skill rotation, shatter combos, stun locks) and I spent the time to learn each class, I could hold my own in Battlegrounds and World PvP against opponents with better gear. Arena removed that ability. Resilience made anything besides Gladiator gear completely useless in PvP. It made any idiot who could press a few keys on the keyboard a PvP god against average players. It made early raid gear pointless, since you could just play 10 arena games and earn SSC/TK equivalent gear in two weeks. No one really wanted to spend a few weeks in Karazhan, learning the bosses and trash pulls and farming for epics, to be able to work up to SSC/TK/ZG when they could just do fast, easy, and fun Arenas for the same rewards.

The effort to reward ratio for Arenas made it the center of the game. It removed a big reason to raid and grind reputation and all the other PvE aspects of the game because it was so easy to get “welfare epics”.

#5 Friends and Family

You may not remember them, but people outside of WoW still exist . . . in real life (or IRL for you really hardcore guys). Sometimes the best thing you can do is take a break. It works for me, every time. I take a break from WoW for a few weeks, sometimes a few months. Sometimes I play other MMOs, sometimes I don’t. But, at the end of it all, I enjoy WoW more when I come back. There are usually a few new things for me to do and see. New things for me to talk about with guildies.

Playing other games helps to. Sometimes they make you appreciate the good parts of WoW and other times they make you realize the horrible parts of WoW. Either way, you’ll come away more knowledgeable and happy, either with your new game or returning to WoW.

#4 Lore

Warcraft has always had great lore. The only problem is that Blizzard constantly changes the lore to fit their hair-brained design ideas. Demon, paladin, shaman, hunter aliens from outer space crash their interdimensional space ship on Azeroth? Really? That’s how you explain your horredous idea to make Draenei a playable race as opposed to the countless other fan submitted (and already in the game) races.

For shame Blizzard, for shame.

Or the Blood Elves? Come on, this is getting ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that players can now slay Illidan, Archimonde, Kael’Thas, and banish Kil’jaeden and all in one expansion. Might want to save some of the biggest names in lore for some future content there Blizzard, like Arthas and Kel’Thuzad – oh wait.

Lore has been thrown out the window whenever it was easiest for the development team to do so. Why make sense when you can just rewrite the 15 year old story to suit your poor design decisions? Brilliant!

And what ever happen to Gilneas? Kul Tiras? Grim Batol? Uldum? Why isn’t Azshara finished 4 years later? Mount Hyjal (present day) is still blocked (even though I can still see the instance portal in Winterspring).

So many things left unfinished and so many new things added unnecessarily make any person trying to follow the lore completely lost and confused to the “new story” as it stands now.

#3 Other MMOs – LOTRO, WAR, CoH, EVE Online, EQ2

There are now a few MMOs that have “made it” or at least have enough numbers to sustain a fun and active community. Many of them have other things to offer that WoW just doesn’t have. EQ2 has 22 some odd classes (I’ve only played a handful of them myself). It is totally geared to hardcore raiding, instancing and questing. LOTRO has an excellent crafting system, interesting instancing scheme, traits, deeds, and the lore of Tolkien to back it up. CoH has super heroes, that speaks for itself. WAR has, supposedly, the best PvP in any fantasy MMO (EVE still sits on top for the best overall).

There are so many other games out there, it might be a good idea to try a few, even if just to gain a respect for the good parts of WoW and to make more informed suggestions for improvement to the development team.

#2 Time Frame for New Content

Blizzard’s time frame for new content releases is downright ridiculous. Years between expansions and months between even the smallest content releases is unacceptable. Even moreso when every single one of them is unfinished and buggy when it is first “released”. Other games release content so much faster, releasing more content and content of quality and do so with smaller teams and smaller budgets.

WoW is bringing in millions and millions of dollars, yet we really don’t see their output being higher, or even equivalent, to their competition. If you are going to claim to the best you have to act like it. The players should demand it, and sometimes they do.

Recently a player simply pointed out that Blizzard should push back the date of launch if things aren’t going to be finished. His comment was made in response to a Blizzard developer letting the community know that the new Shaman ability was going to be missing its sound and animation at launch.

Blizzard’s response to him? Permanent ban from the game. Not kidding.

I think he had a very valid point. Where is all my money going if you can’t even finish your shit on time given a whole year longer than other games (EQ2 for example) to output the same amount of content?

#1 Wrath of the Lich King

The article had this listed as a bonus reason and I have some agreement with his reasoning. The reason I have it listed, however, is because this gives you the perfect opportunity to justify purchasing and trying a new game. You are going to have to buy Wrath ($40) to continue to play WoW and, if you are a new 70 or haven’t reached 70, a reset on everything. You will have new reputations to grind, new gear sets to acquire, new skills to theorycraft over, new boss fights to learn. Basically, all the things you would have to do with a new game, only you get to do it over again in the same world with the same toon with 90% of the same abilities, the same mechanics, and much of the same everything.

On top of that, I would not advise to pick up and play Wrath right away. The developers have continually pointed out things that will not be ready for launch (the shaman talents for example) and other things that will probably be buggy and unfinished. And, everyone and their grandmother (literally in some cases) will be attempting to grind through the first quests in the expansion causing the massive lag, server crashes, and quest NPC camping that made the BC launch a nightmare.

Wrath is very much more of the same. And, because you have to spend the money, you might as well try something completely new.

Gaming web comics are popping up everywhere, and the only bad part is . . . most of them aren’t very funny.

I can almost always guarantee PennyArcade to give me a minor chuckle, despite the pompous arrogance of Tycho (and his amazing ability to use a thesaurus to plug his “news updates” with just about every obtuse synonym for “awesome”). Gabe, on the other hand, is the one who really makes these comics. Sometimes the dialogue is sort of . . . I guess I should use a gamer term here . . . it is sort of “meh”. But the art style is well done and polished and his renditions of facial features is what sells the emotions behind the words.

Gabe, man, drop Tycho. His self-righteous “I hate WoW, I love WoW” flip-flopping is bringing you down. He pretends to be the brains of the operation but after listening to him for, well, several years now, it is very evident that fame and fortune may have started to go to his head. You can tell just by the tone and verbiage of his blog posts. They started out down to earth and sometimes even informative. Now they just sound like some pompous, arrogant blow-tards endless rants (and trust me, it takes one to know one). The only difference being I don’t pretend to not be a dick and neither do I over-stuff my posts with wording no one uses (except perhaps verbiage) to appear more intelligent.

I can’t really be mad at him though. He does it because it is expected from him. Why would we listen to just another whiny, hardcore, gaming fanboy? We wouldn’t. So, I guess I should blame his fans, gamers everywhere, for putting him up on this pedestal that he doesn’t belong on. To be fair, no one really belongs on. To quote something familiar, “We’re all just folk.”

But fear not Tycho, I still love the comics and even some of your updates. I just see through the bullshit. Which brings me to your arch-nemesis in the gaming web comic market – Ctlr-Alt-Del.

Now, to be honest, I didn’t find this comic until is was a year or so on the web. And, while is has it’s moments, I have some gripes with it. I recently found out that the two “guys” in the comic don’t actually write or draw their own comic, their team is actually quite larger. This puts Gabe and Tycho leagues ahead in creativity. I mean, you can’t even manage a simple comic about yourself . . . by yourself? That really only perpetuates the “lazy gamer” mentality.

My second gripe is that the comic isn’t funny. In some cases it is just outright . . . awkward. Granted, it was probably a huge part of your life when your fiancee’ had a miscarriage but that doesn’t make it web comic worthy. Comic . . . comedy . . . there is no part of that situation that is funny! At all, ever. Not even in a sick, twisted, dead baby joke sort of way. Ever! What the hell is wrong with you!

Sharing your life with people on the internet, while I whole-heartedly disagree with the concept, is perfectly acceptable given the right atmosphere and method of delivery. Retelling the story, in graphic sadness, through your gaming web comic is neither the atmosphere nor the delivery method for that kind of topic.

Finally, while not technically a web comic, Zero Punctuation is usually humorous and delivered in a stick-figure comic-esque form, albeit with audio. In fact, Yahtzee, the man behind Zero Punctuation, even has his own bit about web comics in general, discussing both comics that I mention here. In fact, now that I watch it again, I sort of mentioned a lot of the same things.

Well, then, screw it, just watch that episode and you’ll get the same points then.

Here’s a direct link: Zero Punctuation on Web Comics

I recently read an article that was more or less a transcript from a panel of female gamers answering questions. One of the questions came up: How do I get my girlfriend into gaming?

The short answer is: You don’t.

The fact of the matter is, you probably won’t. At least not to the level you imagine in your head. If a person doesn’t like playing video games, no amount of forcing it on them is going to help. However, there are a few things most guys don’t realize that will help you deal with your hobby and your lady.

1) Your significant other may dislike games because they have to compete with them for your attention.

As an experienced, lifelong, hardcore gamer I can attest that gaming is a very engaging, very time consuming, and very distracting hobby. Many gamers get wrapped up in their games for hours on end, completely shutting out the entire world around them. Hell, there was a time in college that my roommate set our apartment on fire and I didn’t even get up to see why the fire alarm was going off. Apply this to a relationship and you are setting up a very dangerous scenario – your significant other versus the game. It is a lose-lose situation for both of you. You get pissed off that you can’t do your hobby, while they get upset that you would rather play games than be with them.

While you might not see it that way, that is what you are doing when you ignore them for a game.

2) Forcing someone to do something they don’t like only makes them less likely to enjoy it.

Forcing anyone to do anything never makes them enjoy it more. In fact, that makes it more like torture than anything else. Many gamers have this idea that if their non-gaming significant other just plays lots of games it will grow on them. That is very, very unlikely to happen. More likely, they will hate games more for being forced to do something they don’t like to do.

3) Your significant other may not like the same games you do.

My wife and I have completely different tastes in gaming. She enjoys adventure titles, I play FPS games. They are completely different in just about every way that a game can be different. If your significant other isn’t that interested in Halo, try a different genre. Who knows, maybe they like RTS games, or adventure titles, or casual games. The fact is, if they find a game they like to play, they may be more receptive to your gaming habits. I can use the example of my parents . . . way, way back in the day. They hated gaming, absolutely thought it was a waste of time. That is, until my mother discovered online casual games (Peggle is her current favorite) and my father discovered online video poker. Now both are hooked on gaming, and surprisingly more interested in other games (I actually got them to play some Team Fortress 2, and I think they may have even enjoyed it a little).

4) Don’t make it all about you, compromise.

A common mistake I see many gamers make is that they are unwilling to compromise. If your significant other is going to be more respectful of your gaming, try gaming with you, or otherwise compromise with you to reach an agreement between the game and the relationship, then you need to do the same.

You need to offer to engage in more activities that they want to do. This may mean doing things you necessarily might not like doing. To be brutally honest, tough shit. If they have to suffer, you have to suffer. That’s how a relationship works, you both takes the ups and downs, together. If you aren’t willing to compromise on some level, why would you expect that they should as well?

5) Co-op, casual games, board games and card games.

My wife and I have our most fun when we are playing co-op games, namely MMOs and Action RPGs, such as Titan Quest. We also have tons of fun in Team Fortress 2 with our Pyro/Medic combo. The fact is, guys thrive on competitive play while women thrive on team-based and creative activities. It is a base psychological difference. Your favorite games may be the complete opposite of what your significant other enjoys.

Casual games are another good start. As I’ve said before, and from experience, casual games are the “gateway drug” of gaming. They are usually games that anyone can enjoy. Playing them, and enjoying them, may turn those who shun gaming to being more receptive of it as a whole.

Board games are dead, or so I am told. I think that is a lie. Board/Card games are one step away from video games, and usually vastly more accepted by everyone. If casual games aren’t their thing, try board games (or easy card games). My wife absolutely loves Munchkin and because she’s played it a few times, she actually asked me to teach her how to play Magic: The Gathering. While I wouldn’t expect the same results for everyone, that is a huge step. When we first met, she literally laughed at my Magic: The Gathering cards and said it was one of the nerdiest things she’s ever seen.

But, I didn’t force her to like it, I didn’t force her to play it, and she always came first (well, most of the time anyway). Eventually she noticed Munchkin in a store and asked me if it was the same Magic. I ended up buying it to show her and she loved it. She thought it was hilarious, particularly because she won – there is actually a card that says any woman playing instantly wins . . . stupid game. And slowly she became more receptive of Magic, she started looking at the cards and admiring the artwork. Now, she wants to play (and regularly kicks my butt).

6) Don’t be patronizing.

You all know you are guilty of this. You treat “noobs” like second class citizens. How do you think that is going to reflect on your significant other. I can tell you how it will reflect . . . it will piss them off. You have to realize that they will not understand gaming as well as you. You need to be encouraging (even if they are terrible, they’re still better than someone) and helpful. Start slow with your explanations though. It can be alittle overwhelming to a new player if you start going into intricate detail of the advanced strategies of the game immediately.

7) Don’t let them win.

Most women no longer find it “cute” when you let them win. They know you are better than them at the game, they aren’t stupid. Letting them win will only make it seem like you think they are stupid and that’s something you absolutely don’t want to do. This is why I suggest co-op games. There is no winner and no loser. You win or lose together and the experience is more enjoyable because you are sharing it.

So, while you there isn’t anything you can do to “get your girlfriend into gaming”, there are things you can do to make her more receptive to your hobby. The key is to not force it. Either she is going to like it, or she isn’t. Attempting to push her is only going to make things worse for the both of you.

Well, that’s all from me, hopefully this advice helps someone. I know it helped me.

I’ve always been intrigued, I guess you could say, about the idea of “Video Game Addiction”. Many gamers deny it exists, and I would say many of them are the ones who most likely suffer from video game addiction. You can be addicted to nearly anything, so of course it is a real thing and possible. And, with most addictions, the ones with the biggest problem are the ones who say they don’t have a “problem” or that the problem doesn’t exist and so on. Take alcoholics for example, you rarely find one that admits they are alcoholic and for every one you do find you can just as easily find 10 others who will viligantly stand by their own assessment that there is no “addiction”.

The same is true for video games and it can be seen just by browsing some gaming websites for forum discussions and post comments. I snagged a few exerts from Kotaku to make some points.

All these comments are from a “World of Warcraft versus Warhammer Online” discussion, for reference.

[I don't play that much or I don't play a certain genre or a certain game because] “I have many other things I could spend my valuable time on.”

While that argument is valid, it completely loses any relevance when you realize it is coming from the comments section of an off-mainstream video game website. I don’t kid myself as this poster has. I have nothing better to do with my time or I would be doing it instead of posting on some website. Seriously, gamers, don’t try to “talk up” this supposed life you have outside the world of the internet and gaming. I know you just say things like this to make yourself feel better and less depressed about your own pathetic and boring existence, but really, there is no need to look down of the rest on the peons of the world (and we are mostly peons) as if you are somehow better than them. You are right there, posting underneath them, in sarcastic and mostly unwitty retorts.

“$15 a month for me and my friends to hang out on WoW every night together beats the cost of gas and drinks to go out elsewhere.”

Again, another completely valid argument. Going out with friends, depending on where you live and your standards of entertainment, can cost between $100 and $1000 a month (if you go out almost every night). When I was in college, however, we supplemented those costs by hanging out at someone’s house and playing a console game together, making our own snacks, listening to some music, or doing other free stuff. I know most people forget about them but parks still exist. We would go throw a football around or kick around a soccer ball (making makeshift goals and fields with backpacks, water bottles, and other junk laying around the apartment/car). That said, there is nothing wrong with a night or two (or even three) of online gaming with your band of brothers (and sisters). The problem is when it is every night, and that’s the only thing you do together.

“It is cheaper, but I also believe it cheapens the whole point of social interaction.”

I tend to agree with this. Unless you know the person in real life, you don’t know them at all. People are the not the same online as the are in person. Those you classify as your “online friends” are really not friends at all. Once you take away the game the “relationship” falls apart. This can be seen when “friends” move to a new game and you don’t. Do you still keep in constant contact with them? Most of the time, no, you don’t. You find new “online friends” to take their place . . . just like guilds do. Sure, there are people who form more long lasting relationships with stronger ties just from online interaction, but those happen a lot less often than you think. That doesn’t really happen with “real life friends”. If your friend decides to get a new car do you two stop hanging out? If he goes to a new restaurant do you find new friends to replace him? If he gets a different job do you stop contacting each other?

See how ridiculous that sounds, yet every day I have people joining and leaving my own WoW guild. Countless “friends” switching servers, taking breaks from the game, or re-rolling and joining other guilds, never to be anything more than cordial associates again. That’s a big difference between the online world and the real world.

“I believe it shouldn’t be a substitute for actual social interaction with friends and/or family.”

Again, very true. It isn’t out of the question to have “online friends” or to socialize with your friends in online games. But it isn’t a substitute for real life friends, real life interactions, and spending time with your family.

I’m spending so much time on the social interaction aspect of gaming because the #1 reason gamers play certain games and continue to play them are “relationships I’ve made in the game”. Gamers play WoW because all their friends play WoW too. They switch games when all their friends switch games (I switched from WoW to CoH/CoV when a bunch of my “real life friends” did, and back again to WoW when my girlfriend, now finacee’, wanted to play with me).

It is just one of the many factors in video game addiction. Social interaction plays a huge role. If this sort of behavior occurred outside of the game most people wouldn’t consider it necessarily a bad thing. The might consider you addicted to the cell phone (since you’d need some means to keep in contact with all your “friends”), but it wouldn’t be frowned upon as much as being addicted to a video game.

Of course, once you bring up this topic the first responses are always defensive replies (even though you haven’t really accused anyone of anything just yet).

“I only played all day long when the game was fun. Once it stopped being fun for me (i.e. grinding) I stopped playing.”

The irony is this same poster went on to say he got all the way to Sunwell raiding in WoW before “leaving for a better MMO”. I guess he failed to see that the entire game is grinding, as is nearly every MMO. That’s what they do best. And, on top of that, he’s now playing a different MMO, presumably “all day long”. I’d hate to try to inform him that he hasn’t “changed” or “solved the problem”. He probably doesn’t even realize he has a problem. Hell, I not even sure he has one!

But that’s just the thing. You don’t see video game addiction like you do other addictions. You see gambling addiction because the person is always broke (or running from “the sharks”). You see alcoholism because the person is always drunk in public. You see drug addiction because the person is always “on drugs” in public. Video gaming isn’t public, you do it mostly from the privacy of your own home, by yourself, locked away in your own little virtual world. Your friends are mostly “real life” gamers like yourself, or “online friends” . . . who are also just like yourself. There isn’t a person, in many cases, who can look the situation from the outside and make a judgment as to whether you may be gaming a little too much. And even when there is that person, they ignore them or blow them off, or in worse cases lash out at them, sometimes even violently defending their gaming habits.

“People running around telling their pity-tales of *addiction* spawned from nothing more than a lack of self-control.”

This comment was in response to a page long comment from a young man who, by his own admission, playing video games so much that he lost his “real life friends”, his girlfriend, his job, and caused problems with his family. He went on to say that other gamers should take a second look at their lifestyles and stop themselves before all the things that happened to him repeat themselves in others. Now, the response comment (posted above) is probably from someone who plays just as much, if not more, than the self-proclaimed addict. His way of dealing with his (probable) addiction is to snub those that say they have one, and cast them down as having no self-control.

The typical response gamers have is that they control their play time and manage their gaming to coincide with, and no interfere with, real life. I can’t believe that is true (at least for the majority of the hardcore gamers out there). How many times have you rushed home from work, scarfed down a hotpocket, and logged on? How many times did you start playing a game, and then hours later, realize you playing far longer than you should have? How many times did you stay up much, much later than you should have because of a game? How many times have you spent what little “fun money” you had to buy more games or gaming accessories? How many times have you passed up other opportunities for fun (including sex) for gaming?

Granted, that could all happen because of other things (like excessive partying, for example – I was in college once, too), but that wouldn’t change the “problem” part of that, or the excessive behavior commonly referred to as “addiction”.

Now, I’m not asking you to take a 12 step program, or even admit you may have a problem. I just want gamers out there to be aware of the issue and maybe take 5 minutes to reflect on themselves and their hobby. You may be surprised what you learn.

I wrote a piece a few months ago about what I call “The Kim Swift Syndrome”. Honestly, it really has nothing to do with Kim Swift herself, but rather the way games are now marketed to the public by using the development team as the face and name of the game. You see, for a long, long time, most game designers were nothing more than names that you sometimes associated with great titles (Miyamoto, for example) and they only became associated with the game after it had become a success. Now, marketing has realized that attractive women (or at least . . . people with boobs) and men (ala Cliffy B) actually make games! Or, the other side of the coin, famous people can sell shit better (ala Richard Garriott).

Other examples from further back in time include American McGee. Back then, it worked for McGee because his games were very good for the niche they were made for. And, he wasn’t simply attaching his name (or face) to the product simply as a marketing tool (well, at least not at first). He made those games himself and he wanted credit for them. He wasn’t just one person on a team of over 100 designers, artists, and programmers. It was just him (for a few of the games, at least).

Richard Garriott, however, is not the same. For one, he wasn’t even part of the design team. He was a producer. He didn’t actually work on the game itself. Not to mention, his team was over 70 people, all of which contributed just as much, if not more, to the game. So why was Tabula Rasa marketed as “Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa”? For only one reason, Ultima. Marketing (and I assume NCSoft) was banking on his name bringing in all the old Ultima players to, at the very least, try the game. Unfortunately, Tabula Rasa wasn’t very good. It was very grindy, had very little content at launch, flawed and mostly non-existent PvP, and bugs out the ass.

And this is where the “syndrome” part kicks in. Now, his name, Richard Garriott, is directly attached to this sub-par MMO forever. He can never get away from it, I mean, his name is right there. He is responsible for this crap. That shouldn’t happen. The developer shouldn’t be directly attached to the game for all time. Everyone makes mistakes, makes games they don’t like or aren’t proud of, and everyone (is this day) is part of a larger team. This individualist movement is bad. Not only does it, possibly, ruin the career of the head honcho (ala Jade Raymond) but it also alienates the team and marginalizes all their hard work.

I keep talking about how this can ruin careers and I keep pointing to Jade Raymond. Jade’s career wasn’t necessarily ruined so much as pushed back out of the spotlight and not from Assassin’s Creed being a bad game. It was a great game, actually, at least I enjoyed it. The problem arose from the community realizing she was really nothing more than a marketing whore (I apologize for using that term in reference to a women, so I’ll also say, right now, Cliffy B is also a marketing whore). Ubisoft pimped Jade out because she was attractive, bottom line, end of story. There is no other reason she was everywhere and on every piece of marketing fluff they pumped out for the game.

Now, I have no doubts about Jade’s talents as a producer. However, there are only two possible reactions to this sort of marketing and exposure. The first is “She has boobs . . . drool”. That isn’t so bad, at least for the game. It will bring in some of the 15-25 male audience for sure, but not for the right reasons. The second, and where Jade got in trouble, is “She’s just a marketing whore”. The fans took both responses to the extreme. Jade was harassed, pretty much non-stop until well after the launch of the game and several shady and rather disgusting cartoons were made of her being a real marketing whore (in the very true sense of the word). Ubisoft, of course, jumped all over this. But, in case people haven’t learned, when you bring attention to something, say by trying to get it legally censored, it explodes in popularity (See Grand Theft Auto). So, instead of helping, Ubisoft only added fuel to the fire. And since this firestorm, how much have you heard about the once uber-famous Jade Raymond? Nothing.

And the horrible part is . . . Jade is a good producer and really had nothing to do with her own downfall.

I see this same trend starting with Kim Swift and Portal. First off, there are a few discrepancies that have been bugging me and I can’t find a logical answer to any of them.

One, Kim’s “official” job title (even though Valve technically doesn’t have them) has changed at least 3 times from the announcement of the game until now. She was, at first, just a Level Designer, then completely out of the blue became Team Lead, and is now labeled as the Lead Designer. Unfortunately, I’m smart enough to figure out what is going on here. Kim was a level designer and based on the levels in Portal, a damn good one. But, since Valve doesn’t have official job titles, they (and she) can say she was . . . whatever they want her to be. And since she’s the name and face of the marketing campaign, she better be someone important on the team (not just a level designer – someone in charge).

Now, we all know, no major corporation, publication, or studio is going to put a fresh out of college, 23 year old as the lead . . . of anything. For one, leads demand respect, and you get respect from having experience. The Portal team had Valve employees with 5, 6 and 7 years of games under their belt. I don’t believe for a minute they’d respect Kim as a lead. I’m sorry, it just wouldn’t happen. As a colleague, sure, as a great level designer, absolutely, but as their boss, fuck no.

I’m not marginalizing her or the game. The game is great and she definitely had her part in it, I just don’t agree with how she is being used and how she is using the attention.

This can only backfire eventually. What happens when Portal 2 comes out and isn’t that good? Or her next game? Or one of fans takes things too far? And where the hell are the rest of the guys from Digipen who made up the rest of the team? Did they not do just as much work? Are they not just as important to the success of the game? What about the Valve designers, programmers, and artists who took their idea and made one of the best games of the year? Where are they in the press releases?

It’s just a bad idea to continue to do this. We’ve seen the possible consequences, many times, and there really are not any benefits, whatsoever. I don’t know a single person on the Peggle team, or on Bioshock, or Call of Duty 4, or literally any of the other best selling games this year. So it isn’t necessary for success to have a pretty face or famous name bring in those extra couple of gamers. Stop it! These people are good at what they do. Richard Garriott was a good game designer, Jade Raymond was a good producer and Kim Swift was a good level designer! And they need to stay the hell out of the spotlight to stay that way.

Today on GamePolitics.com, the ESA released the figures and benefactors of its recent “political donations”. I’m 100% for political donations to help raise the awareness of video game politics to our elected officials, but my gripe lies in the amounts given.

The video game industry boasts being a multi-billion dollar industry and out-profiting movies per year. So, why, I ask, are we “paying off” politicians with such a meager number as $19,000? Every year, these same politicians receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from religious conservatives, who happen to have mostly the exact opposite view of the industry. Washington is all about who can spend the most. A good example of this would be the Health Care industry. They pay sometimes close to a million dollars to a powerful representative to keep things moving in their direction, and we still don’t have decent health care in this country because of it.

The money given to the representatives is nothing short of laughable. World of Warcraft alone makes more profit in one day than the entire industry can afford to throw at legislators? That is quite ridiculous. Even moreso when you take a closer look at how much the “other side” of the coin is willing to pay to keep their ideals, views, and opinions in the minds of the legislators.

This is a move in the right direction, since previously the video games industry has taken a more or less “screw you” approach to legislation. It wasn’t until recently the industry even had lobbyists for any representatives, at all. Now they seem to get the picture that the quickest way to get our “elected officials” on your side is to just outright pay them. But, realistically, $1,000 each to a handful of congressmen and women isn’t really going to make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

The projected total donations for the entire year expect to reach between $50,000 and $100,000. That’s a decent start, I suppose. But from a multi-billion dollar industry, it is really quite low, especially with the high tension between the industry and the legislation. We are, more than likely, on the verge of drastic and quick video game legislation, simply because there currently is absolutely no broad legislation regarding video games. Some states have their own laws regarding retailers, but there is absolutely nothing legally restraining the industry whatsoever. That isn’t a bad thing on paper, but it usually becomes a problem in practice. All it takes is one person (or a group of people) to step over the invisible line to get everyone to jump on the bandwagon of “censor games”. If that line is drawn, known, and legally binding, then when someone steps over that line, all that happens is they get “in trouble”, not the entire industry.

I understand the industry doesn’t want censorship or constraints to their “creative freedom”. But, realistically, boundaries are going to be set. Who would you prefer sets them? An angry mobs of legislators and misinformed parents or an educated alliance between the industry and legislators? That’s really what it is going to come down to. Can we set our own rules or are the rules going to be set for us?

Besides the fact that I haven’t played a “creative” game from the mainstream industry in like . . . 5 years, so I really don’t think they need “creative freedom” to make Halo 4, Madden 09, Call of Duty 7, and Final Fantasy 23.

Donating campaign money is a start, but this small of a sum, I doubt, will be beneficial to the industry as a whole.

. . . or rather, the unrelenting frustrations with it.

I don’t know what kind of gamer “World PvP” exactly caters to since most of them that literally demand it be present in their MMOs are the first ones to complain about getting “ganked” or “camped”. I’ve never personally enjoyed World PvP and I especially despise forced World PvP. However, I am very involved with instanced PvP in MMOs, much in the sense of Battlegrounds, Arenas, and so forth. I find this sort of gameplay much, much more appealing for the simple reason that it is overwhelmingly more balanced.

World PvP is never balanced. Regardless of what anyone argues, I have been playing MMOs long enough to remember the “good ole days” of PvP back in Ultima Online and original EQ, and World PvP is not balanced. I have never experienced such a phenomenon as World PvP ever before in gaming. On one hand it is utterly despised by nearly every single gamer I have ever met (for one reason or another) while simultaneously being blindly and quite loudly embraced by those very same people. The most common argument is that the sides are never even. This is almost always true and in the event the sides are ever even, they are quickly unbalanced once one side starts winning and the other side calls in “backup”. That really isn’t a show of skill, it’s a show of how many PvP crazed gamers you can convince to come help you overwhelm other PvP crazed gamers.

The next problem is ganking, and yes, it is a problem. The problem with open World PvP is that about 50% of the so-called “PvP” that happens is between someone of level “A” and someone of level “A times 5 with better gear than you can ever hope to imagine having”. And trust me, as soon as I am high enough to actually “gank noobs”, I’m right there with you. Now, by itself that isn’t a problem, but in fact a game mechanic. It teaches you early on in the game to hate the opposing faction and the players on that side and creates more animosity for high level PvP between them. It purposefully creates a reason for the players to want to PvP; to get revenge for all the times they were just questing and got insta-killed by someone they probably didn’t even see coming. The problem lies in the fact that the people getting ganked are new players. Gamers that may or may not continue playing the game, and “getting ganked” is a big part of that decision. So, when having only World PvP in an MMO, you alienate literally hundreds, if not thousands, of players from your game rather quickly while the power gamers get their quick fix to satisfy their own superiority complex.

I can’t completely bash World PvP though. I have personally experienced some truly unique moments in some very fun PvP in many different games. However, the majority of it is simply a lesson in getting bullied and beaten by those you can’t really compete with. That isn’t really fun. Actually, let me rephrase that. That isn’t really fun, for anyone except the bully.

I guess I can say to game designers, specifically MMO designers, is to have World PvP be an option. Or at the very least have “Normal” or “PvE” servers with optional World PvP. Personally, I’ve started playing exclusively on PvE servers for the simple reason that it eliminates the temptation of spending my free time in the lowbie zones slaughtering everything that moves. It also removes the need to have my “main” logged out wherever I happen to be questing on my alts (just in case I get on the receiving end of the stick). It’s easier to quest too, because you aren’t constantly being pulled into ultimately pointless battles, running back to your corpse or running back to your quest mobs, looking over your shoulder, getting camped, cursing at the screen . . . you get the drift.

It is just . . . many, many gamers do not like World PvP (many do, as well), and continuing to make games that force it on people is insanity (doing the same thing and expecting different results). Having only optional PvP won’t ruin the game for PvPers since they will be constantly taking that option, but having forced PvP ruins the game for those that don’t really want to get involved. It’s a matter of choice; having a choice is always better than having no option. When you remove options, you remove the possibility of different gamers enjoying the game in different ways.

Crap in a pretty box is apparently a really, really good game.

It almost feels like the average gamer has simply accepted mediocre games as the norm. I have never, in my life, seen such high reviews and sales for utter crap. I’m going to alienate myself from a majority of the gamers out there and say, right now, Bioshock was nothing special. Here are my reasons why:

Bioshock should be renamed “Aquatic Doom”, because that is really all it was. Doom, but with really, really pretty water effects. Now, don’t get me wrong I love me some pretty water effects, but being the disgruntled old gamer I am I require a bit more.

I require a fun combat system. Bioshock does not have a fun combat system. If it takes 5 wrenches to the head (on easy I might add) to kill a regular person, I want to be them, because I’ve tried it and I can’t last more than one wrench to the skull without collapsing in a heap on the floor. The guns were all but useless since you could literally wrench people faster than shooting them (which doesn’t make much sense) which is good because I constantly ran out of ammo since I’m a spray-and-pray type of gamer. I’m sure if I was more a precision shooter, I would have had plenty of ammo but I don’t play that way. That’s the first sign your game is not “Game of the Year” worthy, when an obvious and popular style of play completely ruins the game.

Oh, I almost forgot about the plasmids. I enjoyed them very much . . . for the first 20 minutes or so. There was something very satisfying about electrocuting someone or setting them on fire or sending a Big Daddy in on them. But the novelty quickly wears off. Besides, I’ve done this before in Deus Ex: Invisible War, it is nothing new.

I require fun game play. Bioshock had moments of both fun game play and extremely frustrating sequences that made me want to stop playing the game. Warning to all game developers: Never, I repeat, never design scenarios (even accidentally) that make players want to quit playing! There were two situations I remember that I literally wanted to quit playing, permanently. Both times were pretty early in the game, when I first picked up the telekinesis plasmid, but I didn’t have room for three plasmids yet. Well, I traded out Electricity for it, since the game basically tells you: “To continue you must have the telekinesis plasmid”. But then I couldn’t shut down any drones, turrets, or cameras without wasting all of my ammo on them. Great, now I’m out of ammo, that plan worked well. So, I reloaded my save and swapped out Pyrokinesis. The only problem was that you needed fire to melt the ice to get into the other areas, so again, I was screwed. It seemed like either way I was forced to suffer for listening to the game.

What the hell happened to Fun being the #1 requirement and goal of video games?

The next situation was getting the key (god I wish I could remember its exact name) to the one side room. The key is in another room so that you must use telekinesis to pull it through the window. The only problem was I accidently hit the wrong button when I grabbed it, because a splicer literally spawned on top of me, and I tossed the key into the far room and it landed behind a wall. I now cannot get the key, at all. I spent about an hour trying to get it again, because my last save was about 30 minutes back (and ironically the save was right when I picked up Telekinesis, so I’d have to go through all that shit again). Well, needless to say, I came to the “Fuck this!” conclusion and continued into the game. That isn’t a conclusion you want the gamer to get too, ever, for any reason.

I require a believable story. I said “believable”, not necessarily “good”. I really could care less how “good” a story is because, let’s face it; video games have notoriously bad stories. Your average video game story is something just above lesbian anime fan fiction, mainly because it is written by people who would probably otherwise be writing lesbian anime fan fiction. I pity video game “writers”. I know their job consists mainly of spell checking and “fixing” the designers “dialogue” and “back story”, but they get blamed for bad “story” when really that had very little creative input. Bioshock does not have a believable story. First off, it’s the 60s and you are in an underwater city (which even today is, at best, barely feasible). The opening sequence is just painful to try to put together. First off, the plane crash is extremely inconsistent. If the plane would have crashed into the water, it would have hit the water all at the same time. The sequence, however, shows you in the water (and the tail of the plane in the distance) and then the mid-section of the plane slams into the water. So, logically, that means the plane blew up in the air since that is the only way to explain how different pieces of the plane hit the water at different times. Ok, fine. But somehow I landed right next to the damn entrance to Rapture (which, by the way, has no damage to it even though a plane just crashed/exploded right next to it). Ok, fine. Then I enter Rapture and what’s the first thing I do? Enter the spooky, creepy pod thingy that takes me underwater. Yeah, that’s definitely something I would do in that situation. Now we’re down in Rapture, we watch one poor guy die, then we find a wrench to “defend ourselves” and kill some dude who jumps out at us. Ok, fine, that part is actually sort of believable. But then, for no apparent reason, I inject myself with some random goop? What the fuck?

Of course, the rest of the game attempts to “explain” all this, but really no amount of explaining is going to convince me that someone wasn’t smoking pot the day they came up with this sequence. It’s terrible in both consistency and believability. Oh wait, I forgot to mention, if you look carefully, the tail of the plane at the beginning of the game is completely different from the one that slams into the tunnel. The sizes are different and so are the tail fins, so I guess a second plane happened to crash with you? Maybe we crashed into another plane in mid-air? Sure, that works. As you can see, I have to pull shit out of my ass just to make sense of the story’s inconsistency, but this is one of the best “stories” in all of video games? Wow, video game stories must be really, really terrible.

And now for the grand-daddy reason the game was “so awesome”, the moral decisions. No offense, but it’s just pixels, I have no moral or emotional attachment to a collection of polygons on the screen that I just met in game. The Little Sisters are portrayed as evil, dark, terrible monsters, when really they look just like little girls, except with red eyes. The grand moral decision of the game is whether I hit X or Y? I didn’t like how the game pressured you to “harvest” them, and pressured, and pressured, and pressured. But then, right before you “harvest” them, you are given a second option with no immediate benefits from a person you’ve never met before and are told is just as “evil” as the Little Sisters themselves. It doesn’t sell the options. The game only sells one option, which you are a “bad person” for listening to. That doesn’t make sense. If you teach a child (someone who doesn’t know any better) that something bad . . . is good, then they have no sense that the bad thing they do is bad, at all. That’s what the game did. It nearly forces you to believe you are “ending suffering” or “killing monsters” because it never gives an explanation. It tries to trick the player into doing a “bad thing” by disguising it as something you are supposed to be doing. That isn’t a moral decision; it’s misleading an ignorant bystander who just happens to have a 50/50 chance of doing the “right” thing.

Ok, ok, I can’t be all negative about Bioshock. The game isn’t that bad. It isn’t a great game, but it doesn’t suck as much as I make it out to be. There are plenty of worse games out there, like Quake 4. My frustration comes with the fact that was “Game of the Year” and rated the number one game for the Xbox 360. This game is not “Game of the Year” worthy. It is a pretty, somewhat more fun, underwater version of Doom with a “cool” story. Not good, “cool”, meaning anyone who actually thought about the story and analyzed it for more than 10 seconds realized it was dumb and everyone else absolutely loved it. Like MTV.

I honestly can’t believe that all the other games released this year were worse than Bioshock. Granted, I really haven’t played many that I personally enjoyed more, aside from Team Fortress 2, Portal, Call of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Crackdown, GRAW 2, Hellgate: London (Yes, I actually enjoyed it), Mass Effect, Peggle (which I think should be “Game of the Year”), and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne. Ok, so there were a ton of games that were more fun than Bioshock. I thought that was the requirement for “Game of the Year”. The game which is the most FUN is the winner. Not the game with the most hype (which actually failed to deliver). Not the game with the prettiest water effects (which they were, I must say). Fun, fun, fun!

Why doesn’t anyone care about fun games anymore!?!

I blame game journalists, again.