Maybe I'm Not a Gamer

Maybe I'm not a gamer

It's a strange realization to come to.  the shelf in front of me is filled to bursting with PS3 games I have played through- most multiple times.  I have an Xbox360 as well. And a podcast. And a blog on video games.  I created a video game design course for high school students.  How could I not be a gamer?  If I'm not then who is?

It came to me most clearly when I was playing Uncharted 3, but it has been working its way to the surface like a splinter in skin.  I think I was shooting through another wave of enemies, annoyed about aiming and their fucking armor, and that I was a mass murderer, and I was remembering how I was just doing this before and hating it, but I just wanted to find out what happened, or if it ever got any better.  Then there was Batman Arkham City where I got tired of criminals being everywhere and me having to pay attention so I didn't get taken down while I was looking for a hot spot on my map that never manifested.  Bulletstorm- God! more folks to kill?!  And some voice in my head said, "Dean, these are video games.  You are hating the part of video games where you play them."  I gave that part of my brain the finger.

It was right though.  I only want the story.  I have been playing games more often on easy, because the fighting is my least favorite part.  Games where there is more to do after the story don't interest me.  I didn't touch the challenge rooms in the recent Batman games, nor do I much care about the extra stuff in Saints Row the Third (although there is some character dialogue, so I have played much of it).  Multi-player in games I won't go near, user generated stuff in Infamous 2- meh.  But I have played both Dragon Ages in more time then I spent watching TV this year.

So what am I and am I alone?  Can I be a gamer and not enjoy the elements of game in gaming?  I'm not looking for mastery, I don't take pleasure in challenging my fingers or reaction time, I don't enjoy a challenge.  I just want the story to unfold, I want to see a world, I want to know its characters, I want story all around me in every choice, and as soon as that is usurped by>insert quick time event here< or *more meat throwing itself in front of my gun* or !This boss can only be harmed after it x's and you y and then only by fire attacks unless it's blue!  I do like getting new powers and pretty new outfits, but even this is strange, because in playing Castlevania: Lord of Shadows, I repeatedly wondered why they didn't give me the cool powers to begin with, because fighting was no fun- I didn't think I should have to do anything to earn them.

What is wrong with me?  Am I what is wrong in gaming?  Am I the one insisting games be easier and ruining it for everyone?  Maybe I am or maybe I am asking that games work as hard as Portal did to encourage me to play, to experiment, to examine the environment.  Maybe I am asking for new tropes, and gaming to be a little more true to itself like L.A. Noire where I couldn't just mow people down in traffic and there was a gravity to each corpse.  I don't want more games where I'm a hero trying to save a wife/girlfriend/child/ city by killing thousands and being improved by their deaths.  I think we need to ask games to be more and not have three tricks and 17 environments, and not to have weapons and powers that really only allow us to survive the next level and don't change the gameplay at all.

I'm not sure if I'm crazy or an asshole, and I'm really not sure if I'm a gamer.

A Very SEGA Christmas

As children grow older, the magic of the Holidays fade into embers. Each one holds a different heartbreak when the wonders of myth are shattered by reality. The easter bunny never hopped, the tooth fairy never flew and Santa began as a marketing campaign by Coca-Cola. It's a crushing moment for every child when it's revealed that their parents have been lying to them for a lifetime. Fantastical tales lead way to mistrust during the inevitable tumultuous teenage years. But one fateful year in 1994, magic returned to Christmas for this teen.

I grew up an unabashed Nintendo fanboy since Santa got me the NES Deluxe set for the Christmas of 1987, at the tender age of 9. It had me transfixed from day one. The NES introduced me to Mario, Simon Belmont, Samus Aran, Erdrick, and a host of warriors, mages and heroes. I conquered King Koopa, Dracula, Mother Brain, and the Dragonlord with the help of my new friends. We spent countless hours together in my room, running through a seemingly endless stream of adventures. I thought the tales would never end, until high school approached in '91 and there was a new kid on the block. Sonic.

That blue ball of blast-processing speed had me green with envy. He had a slick attitude no one could deny from his edgy spikes to his impatient toe-tapping idle animation, looking at me as if to say, 'C'mon, I'm waiting for you to get off your ass and give me some speed.' From my first glances of the SEGA Genesis at a demo kiosk at Sears, my head was filled with golden rings of possibility. Shortly later we went home together, and I quickly forgot about those old friends, I had Sonic on my side.

Years passed and my childhood wonder gave way to grungy indifference. Nirvana was on the airwaves, and I couldn't care less about anything. Apathy was cool and so was I, while outfitted in an effortless flannel and Doc Martins. It was fun to lose and to pretend. Meanwhile, secretly, I was playing games as ravenously as the boy I once was sitting cross-legged in the living room inches away from the console TV. But I wanted more. Myst had been released in '93 and I was hungry for the next-generation CD technology, which heralded an age of limitless potential for gaming. Video-integration, massive storage, more game than you could ever imagine, it was all too much for me to take. Without a PC in the house, the new horizon looked dim. Even in the darkest times, there was a glimmer of hope far in the distance. I read an article in SEGA Visions about the upcoming game Lunar: The Silver Star. It looked like an epic journey, greater than Dragon Warrior, more grand than Final Fantasy, more moving than Ultima. That sealed the deal, I had to have the SEGA CD.

Throughout '94, I showed every article I ran across in my GamePro, SEGA Visions and VideoGames magazines to my parents. "Isn't that cooooool?", "Real Interactive Video!", "Hot Animations!", "I could play Dragon's Lair at home!" My tactics were anything but subtle. My poor, poor parents, what I put them through with my boundless admiration of video games. Persistence paid off that year.

Christmas morning of 1994, I popped out of bed extra early that day. The stockings were hung by the TV with care, and presents were wondrously wrapped under the twinkling lights of our douglas fir. My dad fixed eggnog in the next room and the house was filled with the sweet scent of nutmeg and cinnamon. My brothers filed in, wiping sleep from their eyes and took their places around the tree. Our living room was a Norman Rockwell portrait he forgot to paint. We all received a few rounds of gifts, socks, sweaters, and books.

Before we got to the bigger gifts, my mom handed out our stockings. I had one present within the oversized red fleece sock with my name emblazoned in gold glitter puff paint upon it. A bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans. Yum! I had recently developed a taste for these little sweet caffeine-rich confections, so I hurriedly opened the bag and popped a few in my mouth. Then it was the big moment. Our final gifts.

My Dad passed me a hefty box, and my eyes lit up brighter than the sun. Before he could say anything, I ripped into the package, and oh glory of glories, there it was, sitting on my lap. My next-level gen 2 SEGA CD! The side-situated one with the top-loading tray. I nearly leapt off the floor with excitement, and let out an extended squeal of girlish glee, to my older brothers' dismay. It came packed with Sewer Shark, which featured devastating digital video of live actors and explosive CD sound!!!! Sooooo cool!

Before I my heart could reach it's resting rate, my Mom handed me two smaller gifts. I feverishly destroyed the wrapping paper and beheld the wonder and majesty of Sonic CD and Lunar: The Silver Star. The whole reason I wanted the system to begin with was staring at me with glistening silver leaf detail on embossed lettering. True Role-Playing! A Boundless Love Story! An Epic Adventure! And Instant Classic! It was all too much for me to take in at one time. Through misty eyes, I endlessly thanked my parents, and retreated to my room where I began the real journey to the next level.

I closed my door, carefully extracted my future machine from it's box and gingerly placed it upon my throne of honor beside my genesis in my entertainment center. I turned on my franken-system and was greeted with a whole new experience, a menu screen with a satellite view of the Earth and the moon, and a pulsing rainbow-fill of the SEGA CD logo. Dazzled, I sat there and watched the logo flip, and rotate around the heavens. My buddy Sonic was the first one in the tray. My eyes melted as I beheld him rendered in full animation. Sonic boom, sonic boom, sonic boom, trouble keeps you runnin' faster. Wicked! After finishing off a couple of worlds, I remembered I had another present from my stocking that tempted my tummy, chocolate-covered espresso beans. Mmmmmm, rich, dark and delicious.

Then I popped in Lunar: The Silver Star, which began one of my longest continual journeys in video games to this date. I traveled to Burg to meet up with Alex and Nall at the memorial to Dragonmaster Dyne. I met all sorts of companions along the way, talked to ancient dragons and watched with heartbreak as my hometown burned to the ground. It was an emotional roller-coaster fueled by caffeine-filled nuggets of perfection.

I couldn't rip my face away from the TV, it was one of the most fantastical tales I had ever witnessed. And I was enthralled by the real voice acting. Everything else faded away for those hours, I didn't speak to anyone, I did nothing but stare at the TV and pop beans. My mother would knock on the door every couple of hours, "Jay, lunch!", "Jay, dinner.", "Jay, breakfast.", "Jay, are you ok?". I was better than ok, I had reached the next level, and the view from atop was paved with iridescent CDs glittering in the sun.

Two days later, I had destroyed Ghaleon and saved Luna from his wicked mind trap. Sonic had travelled through time to destroy Dr. Robotnik once again. The sewers were clean of rodents and my boss had a few sparing kind words to say. My sleep-depraved eyes had grown weary and my controller slipped from my hands. I turned the knob on my TV to the off position and the screen disappeared into a single glowing dot. Then I nestled under the covers and took one last swig of my half-full Coca-Cola bottle sitting beside my bed as I drifted off to dreamland.

The Moaning Ghost of Ayn Rand

BIOSHOCK PART ONE The Moaning Ghost of Ayn Rand

We’ll start with the basics.  Ken Levine of Irrational Studios used Ayn Rand as a start for his game.  You probably know more about Rand than you think if you’ve been paying attention to politics in the last decade.  Republicans seem to be using her philosophy as a springboard into their policies, so when you hear about “job creators” or the” fiction” of global warming or cutting taxes and social programs, then you’ve Ayn Rand whispering. 

Rand believed in individualism and rationality.  To Rand, man’s ambition and rationality (read science) should be unfettered by concepts of spirituality or communal responsibility.  Those oil producers should be able to go after oil wherever they like and have no regulations, everyone should keep the money they earned; man’s responsibility is to himself, “ The individual should exist for his own sake neither sacrificing for himself to others or others to himself.”  Rand was completely against governmental interference.  She hated statism, theocracy, monarchy, dictatorships, pretty much anything that imparted another’s will over your own or attempted to curb the heights man could achieve through his rationality, “Man is a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity and reason his only absolute.”   Everyone can govern themselves.  It is unclear to me where the nonelite fit into this vision, what about those who aren’t the best and the brightest?  What about teachers who make the learned learned?  Parents?  Why should they spend all that energy and effort on a another?  What happens when men’s views differ or collide?  And most important to me, what if man’s rationalizing exceeds his rationality- how often to we create a bulwark of ideas to support us and a blindspot to others to rationalize what we want to happen?  Levine and his team took these into account when creating Bioshock.  Beyond this the game shows that any idea no matter how pure is tainted and reshaped by everyone who touches it.  We as a society can not live dedicated to one ideal; it will ruin us and we shall ruin it.

What Games Can Be

Video games are a relatively new form of media; it started with text adventures and pong and they were like children making up a play, it grew up a little more with the Playstation and Xbox when game design teams and franchises were introduced, but it is only recently when we have reached a wobbly adolescence where we are testing what we can do and who we want to be and thus the question, “Are video games art?”  Obviously, there are writers and artists, animators, all who fall into the category of  artiist, so I think what is meant when the question is asked is, “Do video games  give us different. deeper perceptions of ourselves and our world?”  What they really want to know is do video games challenge and engage us; the answer is they can, and I have proof.

Silly Frags is starting “Penetration” which takes the tools we use to break down and interpret art, literature and films and apply those tools to video games.  It is a discussion that I hope you will be part of; I hope it is something that lets you see more in the games we love; I hope it encourages a discussion we can have with gamers and nongamers and something that touched us.

 Like literature and film games bring us into a new world, a world that we can interact with, and this opens the possibility of players seeing themselves in how they play, who am I, who do I want to be.  Jane McGonnigal has created a movement (Gameful.org) and written books encouraging us to bring our game traits of courage, persistence, curiousity, altruism, into the real world, and also is finding ways to use game to solve real world problems, poverty, sickness, division.  Game designers themselves are bringing complex themes into their games. 

Bioshock and Bioshock 2 looked at me as a player and made me look at myself as a person.  Spoilers will follow, be warned.  Bioshock takes place in a fallen society.  Instead of a city on a hill we get  one buried in the ocean.  It has dedicated itself to one ideal and was destroyed by it.  You are at first a stranger to Rapture, you’ve arrived a regular guy caught in madness, a magical drug that allows human DNA to be rewritten and restructured that they call Adam.  The drug can cure disease, change or apearence, enhance mind and body, and even give humans what would seem like magical powers, fire control, electricity, and more.  You arrive with nothing and are given your first dose of Adam.   You are told you’ll need it to survive.  You also get to see its effects; the inhabitants of Rapture have become twisted creatures mutated physically and psychically broken.  This could be you.

 Normal gaming tropes have trained us to level up and become more powerful, kill, kill, kill, and you’ll be better- it’s just how it works, but Bioshock makes you shift your view, the monsters are not monsters, they retain part of their humanity, they speak, echoing moments of their former lives.  They speak to themselves and others, and through these bits a player gets to know them and see their tragedy and pain.  Killing isn’t quite as easy when can see the citizens are ill, and we see shadows of who they were.  The city around you is testament to their great minds, we hear their voices in audio diaries.  I didn’t want to kill them, in fact at times I stayed hidden listening to them, watching them.  They can be seen in relaxed mode- they are not always balled fists waiting for a battle.

Then the creators throw in another dilemma, the Big Daddies and Little Sisters.  Big Daddies are huge oafs in diving suits, intimidating and powerful.  They have lost the power of speech and speak in what sounds like whale song.  They protect their Little Sister, a dirty, little girl who moves in optimism and innocence through her grisly harvest of Adam from the bodies of the dead.  The Daddies will not attack unless you attack them or menace their charge.  They are magnificent and frightening, gentle and menacing, loyal and loving.  Do you kill them?  Do you take their Little Sisters?  The game does not force morality on you, in a few cases you are must  kill a Big Daddy, in the rest you are encouraged to kill them and you are offered rationalizations, but  there they are near you and offering no anger, gently following their little girl as fathers do.

The game twists the knife one more time by giving you the option to harvest the Little Sisters for a large Adam bonus or save them for a much smaller one.  The game reminds you that this is not just like opening a chest for your treasure, and it is not looting the corpse of an enemy who tried to kill you, this is a little girl crying next to the body of their protector.  The game even tells you it is looking at you.  The first time you are giving the Little Sister choices you have a witness, a woman who says you can save them, it’s not a dirty murder in a dark corner, the girl cowers and pleads and someone is watching you, someone sane, but Rapture is dangerous and resources are scarce, what will you do?

Bioshock 2 does something outright amazing; it made me put down my controller; it made me responsible for my in game decisions; it blew my mind.  This is a big spoiler, so if you haven’t played the game skip this paragraph.  In Bioshock 2 you are a Big Daddy looking for the girl who was your Little Sister.  She offers what aid she can telepathically.  Fatherhood and family are big themes well explored in this game, and ones I shall get into in another essay, but it is at its clearest when you find Eleanor has been watching you the entire time, learning who she wants to be through your actions, did you harvest the other Little Sisters to get power to save her, did you kill people blocking your path.  Eleanor and the game have watched you and when Eleanor makes her choices at the end of the game you feel powerless.  You were her father, you have created the woman she will become, did you teach her care, did you teach her forgiveness, or did you teach her the powerful survive and everyone else is just a tool to be used and thrown away?  She tells you what you have done and who she is and you are now helpless to change it, you had your chance to shape her, even if you didn’t know it, but your cruelty and kindness were noted.  At this point suddenly I, as a gamer was responsible for what I had done in the game, did I just kill everything in front of me as I do in most games, but in this game I was given choices and I made them and while I believed there were no consequences; there were.  Now when I play games I try to see if there is a way outside of killing to solve my problem.  I even look for games that don’t have killing as their premise.  I am not against killing games, but Bioshock 2 showed me something about parenthood and how kids see what we do and not just what we want them to when we are in lesson and lecture mode- they see how we treat the stranger in the store, our neighbors, the person who cut us off on the highway.  They see who to be by watching who were are, and Bioshock 2 captured that in a game and made me feel it.

Games can be art.  They can be rich and complex and ask us important questions, and in our Penetration segment I will be writing essays and doing interviews about how they are already doing it.  Please join me.

Looking with book eyes

Starting Penetration


I know I talk about Bioshock in every podcast.  I think I may have built it up in my own head beyond was it really was.  When I first played it it was amazing, all of it worked together to flesh out this world that kept slapping you and force your eyes open with it meaty fingers.  The period music that was cheerful, mournful, and eerie; it spoke of happier times, of being carefree, and then dropped in that dark, claustrophobic atmosphere it metamorphosed into at best irony and at worst derision, "How dare they?" it seemed to say, "How dare they believe they were above it all or that they were better.  How dare they think they could create something better and have no consequences!"  That it all fell apart on New Year's Eve and was somehow stuck in that day, a city that was to make everything better and brighter struck down in the infancy and promise of the new year, the sagging banners, the masquerade masks all of it hanging wretchedly covering the decay that had once been beauty.

Rapture was haunted and you walked through it seeing it's grandeur and its degradation, its promise and its secrets.  You could see its unraveling in a way none of its inhabitants could, and you could do nothing to stop it

The first scene, the plane crash, the light house, the bathosphere trip, wondrous and beautiful yet unsettling, and then when the bathosphere arrived in Rapture the horrible helplessness of the murder in front of your eyes and the fear that your were trapped and you would be next.  I had never been so pulled into a game, and I had never been so constantly engaged.

The Frags are going to do a special series of segments of looking at this game and others as we would a novel, examining it closely, breaking it down, looking at themes and symbols, analyzing characters and setting.  We want to see what games have that can stick with us and how they can speak to us.  We are calling this segment "Penetration."  Please join us.

Superhero Ball-Handling

If you like superheroes and shiny silver balls then you must pick up Marvel Pinball on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.  The original game cost $10 and comes with four tables, Wolverine, Spiderman, Iron Man, and Blade.  There are also add-on tables with the Fantastic Four, Captain America, X-Men, Ghostrider, and Moon Knight.  Every table is unique, beautiful, packed with vivid comic art and architecture such as Wolverine’s Weapon X chamber, the FF building, Asgard, Hel, and Nifelhelm, battlefields, a Cosmic Cube, a dragon, and more.  Fanboys can revel in the intense detail and personality of every table; Cap’s table is pure, gritty WWII, Iron Man’s table is red, gold, and futuristic, Blade’s table has a day/night cycle, gothic architecture, cobblestone streets and a tenement.  Besides the main characters standing and posing as 3-D models on the table there are iconic villains, Mysterio covered in smoke taunting you and floating around, Hobgoblin can come out in his glider and throw pumpkin bombs to switch up the game, Sue Storm can erect force fields to stop you ball from being lost, Wolverine will jump over and battle Sabretooth in minigames that require you to shoot specific targets.

It is amazing how the tables vary and how the geography of pinball machines makes it a different game for every table.  Spiderman’s table has twisting ramps and complex skill shots, Wolverine and Ghost Rider’s tables are less complex but no less fun.  The music and voice acting can get annoying and repetitive. For some reason someone decided every hero voice had to be deep and cheesy and every villain screechy, but those thing can be turned off.  The table sounds are great and the pinballs move with weight and near perfect physics, but since it is a video game the physics can be changed up by you in a menu or in game during certain modes.  There can be a lot going on at one time with the pinball, models on the table, pixelated and animated score screen, but familiarity, the opportunity to change the camera angle, and a default screen that shows every inch of the table help with that.  You can play alone or with up to three other players and it’s a blast.

Zen Studios dedicated themselves to pinball and comics, every inch, every sound is connected to the comic’s mythology from texture to animation from archetecture to character models it feels genuine.  I even enjoyed the tables of characters I never followed in comics.  The tables are gorgeous, the gameplay diverse.  Neophytes to pinball wizards will enjoy the game, and comic fans will stand agog basking in the beauty and faithfulness of the subject matter.

At the time of this writing the original games, Fantastic Four and Captain America tables are on sale for $2 a piece which is a steal!

Naughty Saints

Saints Row the Third review

                First of all, it lets you choose the size of your cock- and pretty much every other part of you, but your cock, your bulge, your manhood. Oh, and if you choose to be female then you can (yawn) orchestrate your cleavage.  Saints Row the Third is Volition’s latest sandbox gangsta extravaganza.  Think Grand Theft Auto without boundaries of good taste or any sense of reality.  It is what one would call a riotous rampage of romping.  It is the gay man’s favorite genre- camp, and it does it well.

                Saints Row knows what you like, sexy men- you create them with the robust character creation tools, voluptuous women, they’re everywhere.  The wardrobe is a gay man’s dream cheesy 80’s, hipster, brooding artist, cross-dressing, or just take it all off and show the world your bounty (scrambled, but hey, it’s yours).  The game gives you cool and outrageous weapons pretty early on, tank, giant purple dildo bat, satellite missile strikes, helicopters, rocket  launchers, deadly blowup sex toys, flying motorcycles, all of them are yours.  The digs are lavish and fabulous, you can own anything from a trashy apartment strewn with weapons or a broken down wrestling ring/casino, to fancy bondage clubs and luxurious penthouses.  The game offers you an open and depraved city who loves you for your infamy and energy drinks.

                Ever escorted a tiger in a convertible- you will.  I do not want to give much away, but the game is over the top.  Imagine any outrageous Hollywood B film or action blockbuster and you will see it in this game.  You can throw yourself in front of cars for insurance fraud money, escort prostitutes, leap from any number of flying devices, enter a professional wrestling match or even go inside the internet, and so much more.  I haven’t even mentioned the main story yet which in itself is enormously entertaining.  The voice acting is spot on and the characters memorable and lovable it’s filled with bizarre twists and turns and huge Hollywood moments.  The game is hilarious, with all its bombast and pomposity its characters believe in the world and take it seriously, the game is without a laugh track; it presents itself to you without offering any rib poking or “Eh?  Eh?” to tell you it is funny.   It is beefcake and sexy without being sexist, the men and the women sweat sex, but the both sweat equal amounts of it.  Every hairdo of clothing piece can be worn by men or women and work.

                Saints Row the Third is not without its problems.  The controls are pretty smooth, but wonky at times; I had a little trouble aiming, and sometimes downed light posts completely blocked me.  It has two player multiplayer which is fun, but I would've liked to add another friend or two, and when you help someone else with story missions they don't follow you to your game.  Saints Row will overwhelm you with enemies until you enter a safe spot which are scarce when you start the game, and earning money takes forever, none of these are deal breakers though.  The game is pure fun.

                If you're looking for a sexy, silly, salatious romp you owe it to yourself and your favorite bone (funny or not) to check this game out.  It looks nice, sounds great, and hits all the right notes.  So, call you fellow homo's and start streaking.