Don't Cry For Me, Warren Spector

Landslide posted an interesting article last week, Video Games Aren't Bad. Period, which I wanted to comment on - but that damned Julien Roby guy insisted on taking up all my time with his interview. Ahem.

Anyway, the topic is a little cold now, but I still have the urge to say something about it, and since this is a slow game week, seems like a good time to cram it in.

Problem is, I only really have one thing to say: I don't get it.

Seriously. The whole thing went screaming over my head. I mean, video games aren't bad, I get that point because that was the title and it seems pretty straightforward, but I honestly missed where his narrative was going in relation to that point. Is it that gamers suffer unjustly at the hands of those who don't understand the obsession (because hey, for most of us here it goes way beyond a hobby), but that's alright because it's the life we choose? That's the impression I took away from it, but I could be wrong - let's face it, I didn't get hired for this job for my brains. (And god help me when my looks fade.)

Maybe I'm being dense about it, I dunno. Could be that my interpretation is influenced by the ongoing complaints from gamers about how our pastime isn't taken seriously, that people largely view games as kid stuff, that sort of thing. It's something we hear pretty regularly, we read about it in magazine articles, we see it on gaming sites on the net, and I'm inclined to believe that it eventually pervades our way of thinking, convincing us that we're some gang of charged electron martyrs or something. It's a central tenet of propaganda that if you tell a lie big enough and long enough, to enough people, it will eventually become the truth, or at the very least accepted as the truth - and really, what's the difference? More people accept it, more people spread the word, and pretty soon we all start seeing ourselves as disrespected and downtrodden.

Of course, it's all a bunch of horseshit.

See, here's the truth. Computer gaming will never be accepted as a truly "adult" activity unless and until we gamers start acting like adults, which means we stop giving a shit what other people think about it. People cannot take something seriously as an adult hobby if they're unable to take the hobbyists themselves seriously as adults. A co-worker of mine likes to poke fun at my gaming from time to time - and this is a guy who gets off on spending his weekends sneaking up on unsuspecting moose and blowing them away. I make no secret of the fact that I consider such a thing nothing more than the desperate act of primitive screw-heads trying to compensate for their small dicks; how much sleep do you think he loses over my opinion?

Oh, boo-hoo. Look at me, the poor, put-upon gamer, scorned by my peers for my choice of hobby. Life is so rough. It's just not fair! Want some advice? Put a fucking sock in it. Play your games, live your life. Save your angst for something more important. And repeat after me:

"I'm a gamer. So what?"

Okay, a brief note on other things...

It is, as I mentioned, a slow game week. I spent the past week pounding through two Half-Life add-ons, Opposing Force and Blue Shift. It's a bit odd, but I'm one of the very few folks in the world who somehow managed to get through the late 90's without ever playing Half-Life. I finally scored a GOTY edition a few weeks ago and blew through it, and wow, what a game. I can't speak on it historically, of course, but I can say that it's aged remarkably well, if only because it's still better than 90% of the stuff that's been released since. Naturally, I wanted more, so when I came across a likewise pre-owned copy of Blue Shift last week, I snagged it immediately. Blue Shift got a bit of a bum rap when it was released, because it was stunningly short and really didn't bring much to the party except a little more Half Life. But I liked it - it was a fun little add-on. Course, I also liked it for the fact that it included the Opposing Force add-on, the high-definition pack, and cost less than 20 bucks Canadian. Opposing Force is outstanding; longer and deeper than Blue Shift, and well worth the price of admission on it's own. It's sad to say, but OpFor - a Half Life add-on, remember - is superior to most stand-alone shooters that've been released since Half Life first saw the light of day. If you enjoyed Half Life, but never got around to playing OpFor or Blue Shift, bum some cash from your mom and pick it up. It'll be the best 20 bucks you've spent in awhile.