The rise of technology with the industrial revolution came about the assembly line, often used in factories to quickly make, build, and send off the factory’s product; be it cars, electronics, weapons, and even video games. The same and formulaic games often do seem like they just came hot off the assembly line that they get their very own genre beneath what they suppose to be – The WWII shooter, The Hack n Slash, Shovelware, etc. Of course with the Wii being the new fangled device that everyone must have and Nintendo being at the zenith of profits came about the truckload of shovelware. That is, the current trend, and trends come and go so the factories need to replace their rubber stamps to fit the new trend of games they must shovel out.
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After nearly half of century of development and the synergy of growing technology, video games have become a major part of modern society, an interactive form of entertainment. Separating itself from moving pictures, sequential notes, and walls of words; gaming is unique as it combines all three of these mediums, maybe even fourth, the sweaty test of endurance, with the rise of the Wii. But with all these ways one can entertain oneself, what do we call people who read books? Readers? Who enjoy music? Listeners? How about movie goers? Watchers? At least we have a definite term for people who play sports – athletes.

What am I getting at is the term “Gamer”. Does the culture as a whole really accept to call themselves “Gamers” and not “one who plays video games?”. I truly and always have hated the term “gamer” (and don’t bother pointing out that this place use to be called gamerblag). There are many reason why I might hate the term or maybe I just hate the people who use it.
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I am sure everyone has at least played one online multiplayer game, ranging from First Person Shooters to Real-Time Strategy. This is the new form of competition that has arisen within the past decade and a half due to video games and the internet. This new form of competition has come up so strong that there is a whole entire country dedicated to it, though it maybe only one game, it still applies. Then there is of course the tournaments, LAN parties, even conventions that celebrate these competitive games; things like QuakeCON or the World Cyber Games. It has come to the point that this new form of competition should get their own ESPN or something but let’s take it to a smaller scale, that simple internet lobby where some gather to play competitively, lobbies like Battle dot net, Steam, Playstation Network, and even Xbox Live. But I’m not here to talk about the new age of online sports, but rather online sportsmanship – what the hell happened to it?
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I am sure everyone knows what the tutorial level is and I am also sure that some of you readers can agree with me that they are one of the most annoying things about video games today and within the past decade. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the tutorial level is a level in a game that teaches you the basic mechanics of the game. Why is this so bad that I’m raging about it? It’s the fact every developer out there deems it necessary to have this level mandatory to complete in order to learn how jump and then double-jump. This makes the notion that these developers are targeting their games toward the “casual” crowd, non-gamers, or even your grandmother. Because, hell, everyone is a brand new player into the world of video games but let’s get back on track.

I know neither that all games do not have a tutorial level nor that all games have it mandatory – but I’m not talking about all games. I am talking about the games within this generation and those in last generation where the majority of games had the tutorial level. I am sick of playing a level where it does nothing to teach me, does nothing to advance the story, and most importantly, it does nothing to entertain me. Press A to jump, press square to shoot, swing your controller to awkwardly attack – it’s just plain annoying, especially when the game offers nothing complex to the already copy-and-paste game play of its genre.
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A game is supposed to be enjoyable. When I play a game, I play it for fun. Even when I go to a tournament and play for money I’m still playing for fun. If playing a game isn’t fun, then you should really put the controller down and pick up what does turn your crank.

That being said,  something that doesn’t always make a game enjoyable is the graphics. Sure, graphics can be nice, especially in a game where it serves a purpose. However, in my time, I have heard far too many people tell me that they wouldn’t play a game simpily because it wasn’t top notch graphics or it didn’t push the hardware of the machine to the max. Why would you wanna do that to your machine?

If a game is fun and has good graphics, that’s great, but what if it’s not the best image capture top notch stuff? Some games look amazing even without the magic of the third dimension. Ever take a look at Cave Story? The game would pass for a SNES game, the gameplay is something that’s involving and fun, and the story, while confusing at first, will have you in tears.  Ever take a look at Sonic the Hedgehog on the PS3 and 360? I’m a huge Sonic fan and this game, while very pretty, was a nightmare to play. Sonic clips through curbs, jumps make him slow to a near stop and a personal killer for me: I can see his feet the entire time. I never ever wanna see Sonic’s feet when he’s running. Ever.
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Well, I know ONE fellow Gamerblag member will be raging about this bit of news, but as it is, I’m currently raging too.

The full roster of the upcoming King of Fighters XII has already been announced, and as you can see from the picture above, one specific character is missing. One who’s always been a staple of the series, and definitely recognizable no matter where she gets to. Athena? Generic schoolgirl. Kim Kaphwan? Generic korean badass (although one of my favorite characters). But where the fuck is my fan-throwing, fanservice-drooling, cleavage-bouncing titty-monster MAI? OR YURI? OR WHIP FOR THAT MATTER?

They better be unlockables, Playmore. They’d better be.

For those of us unable to view images for some reason, here’s the roster in convenient list form:

• Ash
• Duo Lon
• Shen
• Kyo
• Benimaru
• Daimon
• Iori
• Athena
• Kensou
• Chin
• Terry
• Andy
• Joe
• Kim
• Raiden
• Ryo
• Robert
• Ralf
• Clark
• Leona

Not even Vanessa? NOT EVEN VANESSA?

The last Street Fighter movie was terrible, but at least it made an effort to present the material as is. We got to see Guile do the somersault, we got to see Zangief and Honda have an impromptu wrestling/sumo match, hell, we even got to see a half-assed hadouken (although it’s more or less a consensus that the Ryu/Ken duo was the worst of it). But at least we saw the characters, as ridiculous as they may seem, to resemble the characters they were supposed to portray. And lambast me if you will but I still think that Raul Julia made a very convincing M. Bison.

Fast forward to NOW, with another upcoming Street Fighter movie, one that centers on everyone’s favorite thunder-thighed Chinese beauty, Chun Li. And it sounds easy enough, right? Just give a chinese actress her costume, those cute bun-things on her hair, and a license to kick the shit out of people. Doesn’t even have to be Bison, it can be just thugs.

Except we get this.

M.Bison is a ruthless businessman with a beard instead of the psychotic megalomaniac in a general’s suit and cape like he should be.Vega is just a thug in a mask. Balrog is a bald, black dude with a bazooka who’s really really strong.

I hate you, Hollywood. I hate you. I wish I could hate you to death.

For those of us who’ve been given the opportunity to see the last chapter of gaming icon’s life – i.e. Solid Snake’s last operation, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the Sony PlayStation 3 – you might have noticed something missing, amidst the stunning revelations, the awesome graphics and the word “nanomachines” being thrown about here and there.

It was a bit subtle, since they made sure we got so much new content that it was hard to keep track of everything, but it was there – or rather, it wasn’t there. Yes, I’m talking about the classic Metal Gear Solid theme, the one we would all hum to ourselves while we’re on a sneaking mission to the ol’ refridgerator at the kitchen, to grab some delicious rations before the parents found out you were staying up late to play Kojima’s goddamn epic. And yes, they left it out of MGS4. Why?

The answer is as simple (and as rage-inducing) as you might think. It seems that some russian composers have gotten wind of the MGS theme (composed by Tappi Iwase and not Harry Gregson-Williams) and have noticed its startling similarity to a piece written by composer Georgy Sviridov. Long story short, accusations of theft were thrown around, and after some legal brouhaha Kojima had to leave it out of the PS3 sequel. Here’s the exact quote:

The truth is, Konami [had legal problems with] Russian composers who said we stole their music. They didn’t [steal their music], actually. But Konami was too sensitive about the situation and just decided not to use that music in the game.

You’ve got to love people being overprotective of IPs when everyone’ s obviously taking creative cues and references from everyone these days.

MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. 

I don’t see the word “dating” in the above acronym.

Before I continue, let me get something straight first: I don’t have any complaints about people hooking up through online games per se. That’s cool; you managed to bump into someone who shares the same interests as you (as do a bazillion other people, no doubt), and it’s way better to meet someone who at least shares your interests than meeting someone from a random bar, or a dating site.

If you could help it, though, it’s best to steer clear from checking out that cute pally in your guild.

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This is what I deal with every day on the internet.

You see, butt-hurt console war crap come mostly from internal regret. From wasting a paycheck and waiting in the rain for a console, or underestimating your mother’s “you can only have one” rule, regret can be, and probably IS the biggest driving force behind console fanboys.

The Wii had the best launch by far, and is still beating the crap out of the competition, leaving old school Nintendo fanboys and once regretful 1st generation DS owners (who lucked out on the system’s initial lackluster success) laughing all the way to their mother’s basements. The problem is, after Brawl was released, Wii owners noticed not only that there are very few good exclusives, but there doesn’t seem to be many good games on the horizon. Slowly, many are realizing that the Wii may truly be a ‘Gamecube 1.5′.

The PlayStation’s fall from grace is by far the biggest story to come from this generation. The initial failure of the overpriced console left it’s purchases restrained only to Sony loyalists, optimists, graphics whores, and kids that got shafted come Christmas time. Things looked entirely grim, until the turning point at last year’s E3, along with the release of MGS4 and the so-called ‘Blue-Ray victory’ led to pessimists dropping their guards and embracing the console. It’s sudden upturn, in addition to a slew of new exclusives, has not only returned hope to Sony’s eyes, but has led fanboys to strike back at their opposite competition with a violent vengeance.

Which leaves the 360. With good sales and the highest number of quality exclusives, the 360 owners should be the happiest fanboys of the bunch. But lately, with the rise of the PS3’s sales and the Wii’s dominance, the possibility of the 360, once the shining star of the generation, ending up the least successful, has fanboys absolutely livid. Even worse, the constant comments from casual and non-fanboy PS3 owners raving about their new console for no reason other than the fact that they just like to play the games has led to hilariously horrible fanboy wars being ‘fought’ on every corner of the internet.

This combination of groupthink and regret felt on every side has led to the most blatant and annoying generation of video game fanboyism ever seen. Even worse, more and more aging children are being brought into this gloriously unhealthy fandom with this powerful fanboy mindset, which may mean that all future generations of video games inspire the same undeserved rage this one has.

P.S.: Venom is from Spider-Man.