For The Last Time…Entertainment is Neither New Nor Evil!
1 Comment So I’m a fan of the Kotaku and while perusing the site recently I saw this thread.
It’s bad enough to have all the politicians and reactionaries, calling Television or video games dangerous…but now it’s gamers doing it! I understand limits for children, and I don’t merely love the idea, I am in fact In Love with the idea. I just want to make a few points about some arguments for those limits that I disagree with.
I understand that many people believe that Television/Video games “Rot your brain”(I don’t even like typing it), and many people also believe that gaming and television hamper a child’s social abilities. I do not intend to demean or belittle either these beliefs, or the people who hold these beliefs. What I intend to do is give some food for thought to those that might not recognize a few real benefits of being well versed in modern entertainment. I assure you the situation and results of media consumption are not as simple as Black and White.
I would like to start off with the “Television will Rot your Brain” outlook on Entertainment. I am probably simplifying this outlook some due to lack of understanding and time/space constraints, for this I apologize, once again I do not mean to attack…merely to bring to light a contrary possibility.
Now entertainment has existed for as long as humanity…and most of it is far from new…Television is mostly a digital version of ages old morality plays and news reports. Have you ever noticed how being gathered around a television would be similar to being gathered around a glowing fire listening to an elder spinning mythical tales or retelling the events of a hunt? Seriously folks…it’s not that new, it is less interactive and personalized…but that in and of itself is not bad and I will argue later as a bonus.
Now Video games are essentially an amalgam of T.V. and just straight up Play. The T.V. brings the visuals…which it took from plays, ballet opera or any other visual performed art, and combines it with action, and interactivity of say, tag or catch. The themes and gameplay used in modern video games tend to be addictive because they are built on an ancient tradition of crafting rich entertainment. God of War’s respectable story was obviously enriched and inspired by Greek Mythology…so does reading it in a book make it any more valuable, worthy, or enriching than seeing it on a screen? How is analog more wholesome than digital when it comes to entertainment?
If the argument is that entertainment makes humanity, and specifically children lazy…then the “Rot your Brain” line is an improper phrase and “Rot your body” is more appropriate…and I believe a much stronger argument…though I believe the comfortable sedentary lives most of us lead are much more powerful tools in making us lazy than Entertainment alone.
If the argument is that Games/TV make humanity or children less thoughtful or creative…well that is in my opinion “poppycock”. Studies have shown that gamers have better reaction times, are better problem solvers, and are better at tasks involving “Spatial relations” than non gamers…now about creativity. There is a funny thing about creativity…most people think of the act of creation(I mean imaginative not religious) as being revolutionary and not evolutionary. Any literature student can tell you this is not the case, old mythologies were used as the basis for new ones, all the way up to the present day. From George Lucas to Stan Lee, modern storytellers are admittedly inspired by the old, each new iteration adding it’s twist, Romeo and Juliet becomes West Side Story becomes Grease, and Norse mythology’s Volsung Saga becomes The lord of the Rings, becomes D&D the game becomes D&D the movie. So yes some times good things get ruined but the cost of inspiration is the acceptance of imitation.
BTW the fact that we have phrases like “Art imitating Life” and “Write what you know” in our cultural lexicon does not give much weight to the “Eureka” instant moment of solitary creativity belief either.
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Now on to my argument against the damaging social skills aspect and the argument that the non-interactivity of TV is actually healthy for society…I know it sounds preposterous, but please hear me out. Have you ever been in conversation with a stranger feeling awkward and clumsy until one of you said “Duck Tales” and without missing a beat the other filled in the “woo-hoo”? Well probably not that exact scenario but most of us have had a moment when we were instantly able to share a connection with a stranger over some shared childhood or entertainment or even modern entertainment.
Now you might be thinking “So What? What does is matter if we watched the same show as kids?” Well it matters a lot, shared or similar experiences create powerful bonds, and since these shows were not interactive, we all had the same experiences. Have you ever been traveling abroad and met someone from your home town? or even state? It creates a true and meaningful bond…the bond may be shallow, but even the Grand Canyon was shallow once, you have to start somewhere.
Sharing bonds and culture–Even Pop Culture–with each other is what makes us a society. The funny thing is as we assimilate more and more entertainment from other cultures(Anime, Foreign Films, Monty Python), we will have more and more in common with the cultures that created the entertainment, and more understanding of the culture and their society.
Through these unintentional cultural exchanges the entire world will begin to gain understanding of and bonds with each other. Yeah I just said that Popular Culture could lead to world peace…and I refuse to un-say it.
BTW just another tidbit for the entertainment haters out there.
Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population.
Grand Pearl Pooh-Bah
2 Comments I played another game of Hexic HD on Friday night (Perfect Dark Zero continues to be unavailable). In this game, I attempted and successfully acheived the Grand Pearl Pooh-Bah award.
Now I am Ranked 8th overall with a score of 2,590,100 points. This is about a 1.7 million point improvement from the game that ranked me 27th. 
Here’s a pic I took on my phone, which came out way better than I expected:
Hexic Ranking Update
2 Comments Aaron wrote that I made it up to around 213rd (out of tens of thousands) place on the Xbox live leaderboard for Hexic. This is a good thing.
I have a desire to eloquently communicate my updated, but I just made it home after midnight. So here’s an brief summary instead:
- Playing this game hurts my brain.
- I had no intention of revisiting this trauma for another week or two.
- Perfect Dark Zero kept on crashing.
- Hexic was played instead.
- I made it up to 27th place
- I feel drained and I won’t be playing this for at least a week.
- It has been claimed that I probably am the highest ranking Hexic player that doesn’t own an Xbox 360.
- Did I mention that I’m sleepy?
Good night.
The Xbox360’s KILLER APP!
1 Comment Every console or platform needs that one program that sells it…that one program that makes it stand above the rest. The X360 has it’s killer app at launch…and it’s already installed on every system…and it’s free!
Hexic HD
Seriously, Hexic is like Tetris’ hotter younger sister. The game is so highly addictive that words don’t do it justice.
Also, it is the only game that doesn’t freeze up my crashy McCrashes-all-the-time X360.
If you ever have the opportunity check out the Xbox Live rankings for Marathon mode play for Hexic. Currently around place 213 is a fella goin’ by the name of “Badpopcorn”. I conned Benny into starting a game around noon and he hasn’t really looked back for the past 10 or so hours.
Killer app I tell you.
Oh…I’m told that there is a cell phone version of the game available from a game company called Square Enix. But that appears to be a distinctly different game…Do not be deceived!
The Family Entertainment Protection Act
No Comments So you might not know what exactly is dangerous about this proposed act…you might not even have heard that it exists, luckily, I am here to help you out.
The first warning sign is that it was proposed by politicians…these are the jokes.
Let’s start simply with the name of the act “Family Entertainment Protection Act” . Now in this post Patriot Act America we know that the only way the government is likely to “Protect” us is by taking away someone’s rights. The only way to protect family entertainment is to take away the rights of those who seek enterteinment in a “Family Unfriendly” way, this time it’s not porn…it’s video games…well Mature rated video games…so the porn adjacent (Actual pornographic games are rated AO and are never mentioned because they sell like crap and so do not garner attention).
But I digress. You can find the majority of the info on the bill over at Gamepolitics.
The most disturbing part? These politicians must know these laws will be defeated and declared unconstitutional. The Entertainment Software Associaction, which has been fighting these Anti-Game laws has even come to describe these laws as “feel good legislation”.
Apparently politicians get a warm fuzzy feelin’ from the “Family Values” votes they think they will get by attacking the video game industry.
Won’t they be in trouble when gamers finally start voting…I hear it will be one of the features for the new “Windows Vista”.
So my Xbox 360 crashes like a drunken Ted Kennedy
1 Comment Yep.
About every two hours it freezes…like…something…that freezes…put in…a really cold place(note to self, replace this with a decent analogy).
So Benny told me I should “call” Microsoft support. I am not kidding, he said “call”. I then explained to him that they were in fact a company that was up to date with the mid 1990’s and that I would be able to register my issue via a “web-site” or at the least through an invention called “E-mail”. I was going to go on and mention that I would call them just before sending a telegraph, but I did not know where to find a rotary phone. I could see that my previous jab had more than done the job by the irritated look he gave me.
So I’m waiting for support to email me back. Here’s to hoping I can download a patch!
Xbox 360 $6200 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!? [UPDATE]
No Comments Yes. An X360 sold this morning for over six thousand dollars…they currently average around $1000.
So I get mine sometime today-crap, I mean right now- and I am now tempted to sell mine on the Ebay.
I decided to purchase the X360 as I am as mentioned earlier “Microsoft’s Beyotch” and now I have the chance to be one of the “cool kids” one of the haves instead of the have-nots.
My dilemma is whether or not the enjoyment I would have with the system between now and…probably next February when the systems become readily available…and the feeling of finally having the “it” cool product will be worth $600.
I tend to think of true happiness to be worth about $20 an hour max, but it’d better be some damn good happiness. So figuring $10/hr as a fair price for moderate enjoyment over the next 3 months…it should easily pay off to keep it right?
[UPDATE]
It’s in my hands (and on my lap) right now… How could I have ever dreamed of selling this beautiful piece of hardware?
For those of you that won’t know until some time next year…it smells like heaven.
2 Words… Jack Thompson
1 Comment So,
As many of you know, I work in the video game industry. Many who do not closely follow the industry have missed out on some rather interesting drama and just plain good entertainment brought about by one Jack Thompson.
Now, this man is on a crusade against violence and sexuality in video games. This is his right. I have nothing against the cause of protecting children, and I too believe that children should not be playing Grand Theft Auto or similar games. My problem with Mr. Thompson is that I believe the actual parenting of children should be done by…well…their parents.
This is not actually what this post is about. You see Mr. Thompson has been seeming less and less rational each time I hear of him and…well he said this:
Now statements can often be taken out of context for sheer shock value so the responsible people at Game Politics did their best to make sure this was really his intent, mentioning that his comment could appear insensitive, and he said this:
”
Insensitive? What the Japanese are doing to our kids is insensitive and racist. The Japanese have for a very long time dumped pornography into this country in a fashion they would not tolerate in their own country. It is another version of Pearl Harbor.
”
I could not make stuff like this up.
He reportedly went so far as to email the Japanese Ambassador, with a strongly worded letter that starts as a request for assistance, and however ends up nearly accusing the entire country of abusing America’s youth. I am not Japanese, nor am I an Ambassador, let alone the Japanese Ambassador…yet I am baffled and mildly offended. Can one expect help from someone while making this sort of attack on them at the same time? Does Mr. Thompson believe that the nation of Japan is responsible for Sony’s actions in America? And more importantly, does Mr. Thompson think Sony is as much to blame for this as Rockstar games…the company that actually created the questionable content?
I believe this man to be a true and undeniable Zealot, and usually there is nothing more frightening to me than a zealot… But, Damn. He sure puts on a good show…
Like chocolate and peanut butter.
No Comments So I was just going through my normal business online the other day when I saw…Doom the R.P.G. for the cell phone.
At first I laughed, but then I realized it was a first person turn based R.P.G. I love first person turn based RPG’s, and I have real fond memories of the DOOM… So I bought it $6.99
It was everything I had ever hoped and more… It was truly beautiful. That little app transported me back in time like ten years. It’s just plain old fashioned fun.
I really used to believe that the mobile games craze was total crap. I have even gone so far as to say that mobile is the new dotcom as absolutely everyone in the gaming industry seems to think mobile games will be the next big thing.
I still doubt that mobile will be anywhere near as big in the US as Europe and Japan, but I might have just become addicted to a cell phone game.
Super Mario War
1 Comment I am wholely addicted to a homebrew homage to the Mario Bro’s franchise– Super Mario War.
There are very few quick fast paced multiplayer games that I can’t walk away from. This is one of them.
This game is simply a multiplayer deathmatch game, with different game scenarios and custom maps. Fight agains other marios (or luigis) to win. It’s not a too indepth game. Rather it’s short, simple, fast pace, and addicting.
