I Hate Videogames

What’s with videogames these days? On one hand, they are much better than those of yesteryear, and on the other hand, they are turning our kids, friends and families into virtual zombies.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have some deep seated hatred for videogames; quite the opposite, in fact, I love videogames, if the truth be told. I even co-own a website, PS3GamerGroup.ca, that caters to people who enjoy Playstation 3 and its games.

I’ve been playing videogames since the early ’80′s beginning with the Commodore Vic 20, then moving to the Commodore 64 and then the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). While the Vic 20 and C64 had rather crude graphics and sound, I never really enjoyed videogames until I got my NES. The graphics were still crude (8bit magic, I tell you) and the sounds were very simple (the worst cell phone ringtone today is by far better than the best soundtracks of videogames back then), but the gameplay changed. Think of the Super Mario Bros. platformer – a very simple game, but it somehow provided hours, upon hours, of entertainment for me and my friends. However, even with such soon-to-be classics in the making, such as Super Mario Bros., my friends and I still found the time to do other things. We played catch, football, pool and ping-pong. We also walked or rode our bikes everywhere or anywhere we needed to be.

Today’s videogamer, in my opinion, do nothing outside the videogame realm such as participate in friendly sports challenges, or even have the energy to walk or ride their bikes anywhere. They do nothing but want to play videogames. They even want rides to friends houses to play videogames. Friends that live a 15 to 20 minute walk away now seem lightyears away and they desperately need a ride because they may take away valuable time from online play.

Today’s videogames are, in a word, awesome. Take Uncharted 2 and the Call of Duty series. Both are tops in their class and allow gamers with unlimited gameplay, especially with online play. Online plays both sides of the same coin. Not only do you get to play an awesome game, you don’t even need to leave the house to play with your friends. These gamers get up early to play videogames (well, as early as they can on weekends). Skip meals to play videogames. Take one bathroom break every seven hours. Go to sleep late, after playing videogames. Todays videogamers are turning into zombies. Ironic, as zombies are a favorite “bad guy” to kill in games (see: COD: World at War and Black Ops, Burn Zombie Burn, Dead Rising and the eagerly anticipated Dead Nation coming soon, for a brief list of the latest zombie killing games.) Come school mornings, gamers don’t get up in time to get to school on time and responses to parents pleading sounds like a zombie in the middle of a bowel movement. They even walk slow and awkward ( the best visual to give you would be some of the first zombies encountered in Shaun of the Dead). Getting these gamers to take a “break” for, oh, I don’t know, eating supper or taking out the trash, can be a real chore in itself. Sometimes, I bet parents wished they had their own game console to log online to and then they could talk or msg their kids to go eat and/or do their chores. I bet they would listen to that because it seems they are a slave to the game and its contents.

Ok, now back to the topic headline of I hate Videogames. Maybe I should of titled it, Dr. Videogame (or how I learned to stop hating and like the game). I don’t hate videogames. I hate what it is doing to today’s youth: turning them into zombies. I swear I saw a videogamer just the other day saying in a zombie-like groan, “…games…games…”. Help me, I’m scared.

I was right! NGP-PSP2

I said it could possibly include Android, I said it wouldn't use TEGRA, I said it would focus on the hardcore market, I said it'd have console-esque power, I said they'd be going with their own Android-Store; I pretty much nailed my predictions (these were BEFORE any other "leaks", check the blog date!).

So, to make this blog have a bit of consistency and actual worth in reading, here are some more predicitions:

- PlayStation Suite will be a huge success. It'll allow indie devs to bring games to the system via android, and you're going to hear some REALLY nice "rags to riches" stories similar to that of Angry Birds or even Minecraft.

- The system will be $299.99. This offers a easy-to-afford pricepoint and will allow Sony to perhaps make 2-system owners of 3DS purchasers. Therefore they won't exactly be competing in the same way the DS and PSP were until much later after the system debuts.

- Depending on how this year unfolds with Parallax Barrier products (I forsee these being the next "tablet" rage) we may see the NGP-3D. Of course this won't be until 2013 or later, but by then Sony will have mastered the quality-3D ratio.

The HA epidemic

Hello Ladies and Gentleman We interrupt you're regularly scheduled blog posting to bring you this important public service announcement:

PANIC

A wide spread plague has hit the gaming world and the repercussions of this epidemic could mean the end for video gaming.

The "Half-assed" virus, or HA for short, is a 6 stage virus that attacks the hearts of gamers with the possibility of causing lethal reactions for the infected victims. This HA virus is manufactured by a group calling themselves "The Developers". The following are the stages of the HA epidemic.

Stage 1: The Hype

"The Developers" design the virus to attack both the heart and the head during this stage. The HA virus attacks the head and releases images of awesome fights, cool musics, death diffing acrobatics, and senses of team work in these clearly fabricated "works" they call "Trailers". These "Trailers" could be released several different times and once they are released upon the victims it can spread like wildfire. The "Trailers" release these images in the victims mind create desires in the heart of the victim. Sometimes the infection can become so bad that the victim turns to criminal action.
http://www.baltimoresun.com...

Stage 2: The Game

This is probably one of the hardest hitting stages of the HA virus attack. After the "Trailers" create the wants and desires in the hearts of the victims, which only grows over time, "The Developers" release a catalyst to the HA virus known as "The Game". When a victim gets a hold of "The Game" one of two things can happen. Either the victim has a positive reaction to "The Game", a rarity only getting rarer, or they have a negative reaction to "The Game". "The Developers" purposely release "The Game" in a broken condition where it will intentionally have the hardest time creating positive reactions with the victim. This can cause extreme anger and sadness in the heart of the victims, leading to the potential of suicide.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008...

Stage 3: The patch

After "The Developer" intentionally releases "The Game" in a broken state and create depression and aggression in the hearts of the victims they release stage 3 of the HA virus known as "The Patch". "The Patch" is a inhibitor designed to 'fix' the problems that plague "The Game". Often times "The Patch" is, again, intentionally released to not fix all of the problems with the "The Game". They are only released to bring hope back into the hearts of the victim. The victim starts to regain hope that they can survive the HA virus.

Stage 4: The Fall

After "The Patch" is released to fix the problems with "The Game" and the victims start to regain hope that can survive the HA virus they attempt to reinitialize "The Game". Most of the time the victim will have a negative reaction to "The Game" again and step 3 and 4 will repeat over again. Sometimes "The Patch" will fix "The Game" completely and the victim will survive the HA virus. However for the most part "The Patch" will not fix "The Game" and the victim will develop severe anger and often time intolerable aggression.

Stage 5: Recovery

After The Fall, the victim will go into recovery mode. During this time either the victim is able to completely remove the HA virus by removing "The Game", or they develop an immunity to the HA virus.

Stage 6: Repeat
"The Developers", seeing how well their HA virus worked the first time they begin developing a newer and updated HA virus that the victims of their first HA virus have not developed an immunity towards. The HA virus process repeats itself.

Conclusion:
Ok. I know I over dramatized this quite a bit, but it is a serious problem in gaming today. Developers only understand one thing. Money. Let's start telling the Developers we're sick of them trying to sell us their half assed games. Vote with your wallets.