When the world is falling to ruin, it is very important to know which side you are on. If you just happen to be the one doing the ruining, great, good for you, you are pretty evil, people definitely hate you. However if you're on the side doing the hating, you know, of the evil guy, it is also very important that you ally yourself with reliable friends.

In the world of gaming this act of camaraderie is referred to as "Co-op."

The goal in any "Co-op" mode is to work together to complete common objectives. It makes perfect sense! Why do what one person can do when more can do it better and faster?!?! However my experiences have proven time and again that this dream theory brings with it more chaos than any mob of baddies could ever have wrought down upon my blistered thumbs.

What I mean of course, is that friends, nay ANY ally, when converted to virtual sprites and polygons, are the most evil creatures you will ever meet. Just picture it, if you and your friends were basically immortal and on a quest to save the world, how many times would you fuck with them just to do it?

Exactly.

Have you ever tried playing "The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords" for the Gamecube with 3 other friends? You will spend more time burning each others asses with fire rods, pushing purple link down chasms, and slicing each other from nape to chops instead of actually progressing the plot. And the greed factor is thrown in there to increase the fighting. Who gets what weapons, and "Oh no, blue has the most rupees, push him into spikes until he dies and poops 'em out for us to steal!"

The horror doesn't end there, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is also pretty brutal on the greed side. Your a group of four adventurers stuck together within a 7 foot radius of a chalice filled with magic tree water. The one stuck carrying the chalice gets shit, and there's always that one guy who stands back, waits for the kill, and swoops in for the treasure... that guy I call "Sam." So basically, its a bitch-fest until we get the guy to divvy the loot, which he kind of does, but still keeps like, 50% of it. Jackass.

Some more recent examples of games that bring about these feelings of anger are "Left 4 Dead" and "New super Mario Bros. Wii". I mean, I can't even tell you how many times I've been online playing the L4D campaign only to get hit by a hunter halfway through and witness no one coming to my rescue. Which is very stupid because they all end up dying after that anyway. And NSMBW is a major betrayal-fest, when you're getting eaten by a yoshi and then spit out into a hole, or getting blocked on a jump so that you slide to your death. It's just... why can't people be nice?

The only exception to the Co-op rule that I've found is if you're fighting against another group of live players. If you're actually kicking other peoples' asses, its okay to team up, everything is cool, let's work together, yeah yeah yeah. But you replace those online players with bots, and all sense of the word "comrade" suddenly disappear.

Maybe its just me, maybe I just play with a bunch of douche bags, but if there was one perfect example of evil in video games, my answer would a thousands times be: Co-op. Nothing brings about more hatred, malice, and corruption than sitting in a room with 3 people and fighting over virtual goods.

Thank you for reading.

(> ' .' )> Capm Trevo

Video games have been a huge part of my life growing up (it's how I learned to read for god sakes!), and as I progressed into a money making machine at the age of 15, a good chunk of my monthly wages have gone into buying games. I would get a bimonthly check for 600 bucks, 200 of it would go to games. What I'm trying to say here is that I'm a collector.

Usually what that means is that I have WAAAAAAAY too many games and not nearly enough time to play them all, especially RPG's. Now don't get me wrong, I love RPG's, they just might be my favorite genre actually. But when I'm looking over what title I should use to cure my boredom, an RPG looks a bit more than daunting (especially Atlus ones, I can't even tell you how many times I've restarted Riviera and Yggdra Union).

Now a few months ago I'd acquired an amazing girlfriend with which of whom I am deeply in love with. Her fancy lies with Final Fantasy type games, and when we were sitting down for one of our first few dates, she was appalled at the fact that I owned most of the games she loves and have only beaten a few of them.

Like, she almost gets upset. No joke.

I'll have started one of the games, and then not touch it for a week, and she'll ask me all excitedly how far I've gotten, and at that point the only thing I can give her is disappointment. The scolding will then ensue, and my pride as a gamer, or at least what pro status I ever thought I had, will deflate like a balloon filled with farts.

It's kind of nice though, kind of. I mean, since then, I have finally beaten FFVI, FFX, FFXII, Chrono trigger, Chrono Cross, Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2, and Dark Cloud.

All really great games, and I knew this, I just never got around to beating them. And with her around, I'm slowly making progress on my collection whilst still buying more and more games. Thankfully, and I never thought I'd say this, but current gen games are WAAAAY shorter than older games so once I hit that bump in VG offspring, I'll be flying through games.

So there you have it, a little peak into my life with my RPG addicted girlfriend, thank you for reading.

(> ' .' )> Capm Trevo



P.S. FFVI is so much better than FFVII

I never thought I'd have so much fun tying piranhas to tress, frying sharks with toasters, and sticking mice in ovens without some kind of repercussion, but Scribblenauts has given the world the ability to virtually pursue all of their guilty pleasures, and not without reward!

I've only had Scribblenauts for a day and a half, (and honestly I've spent more time messing around with the opening page than playing the actual game) and I've only gotten through world 2. Now some of these puzzles actually make you think, not everything has a quick fix. One such level, Action Level 2-2, gave me a bit of a tough time. You are supposed to get a Starite without setting off a chain reaction of explosions that ultimately explode your sought after treasure.



So, I try a couple things, i fail, so i decide to try a teleporter.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I clicked "ride" from the action options, and it took me, not to the Starite, but to another world, still labeled "2-2". To be more precise it was an room with an office kind of feel to it, and inside I found six unique people sprites (the only female being a zombie for some reason). I hit the "Identify" magnifying glass button to see what they were.

Lo and behold! It's the genius team of our beloved game in sprite Scribblenaut avatar form sitting in their 5th Cell office!



This little tidbit was enough to get me all giddy, but since the alternate universe was still labeled as "2-2" I HAD to check other levels to see if there was a difference.

There is.

Every Level has their own distinct alternate world that the teleporter takes you to. I learned a lot of new words this way. And in addition, the "Time Machine" has a similar function that takes you to even ANOTHER world (but its the same world for every level, some medieval world).



The crew that made scribblenauts is just one awesome easter egg I found, who knows how many more there are! Keep a look out and share them! I love this game!

Video Gaming...

The 20th Century's greatest offspring, and one of the many loves of my life.

Having a younger father who wasted many a penny on the arcade joints, my destiny was bound to include the magic of interactive technology in some way.

BUT...

One day, when I was the ripe age of 7, a violent earth quake separated my creators to opposite sides of my world. Life was hectic, and the traveling was rough. I needed to find a midground, a haven of sorts to root myself to. My great grandmother provided me the tools and the training to explore brand new lands full of interesting discoveries and exciting adventure.

The tools: An Nintendo Entertainment System and the dusty stacks of games loved dearly by a veteran gamer.

The training: Intensive backseat nagging of secrets missed, weakspots gone unnoticed, and button combos that became a second language.

3 years is all I had. My master had perished, and I vowed to continue the legacy that I was left with.

Gaming was a part of my soul.



Fast forward to present day:
Currently, I am a buss boy at a sushi restaurant in the great port city of Seattle, where I make WAAAY too much money for what I do. I spend most of it on my number one hobby: Video Games, which i continue to enjoy greatly to this day. I'm only a few months from my 21st birthday and I don't have a lick of college education to back me up in an interview. My decision of what to do with my life still lies unanswered, and will probably remain that way until I find my calling.

It could very well have something to do with video games, I would love that...

However, it could also have something to do with writing, drawing, acting, managing, cooking, designing, or any other number of things that I know I can do and enjoy doing.

My path is unknown to me, but when I do know, you guys will know, for whatever it is, I will be famous for it. No question.

So in the meantime, I am here, on this grand website that is heavily based around its community, bringing everyone together to discuss a subject that is widely received in positive ways.

I am here to share my love of playing the video games, my love of online wit, my love of intelligent arguments, and my love of telling noobs to GTFO with those of you with similar passions.

I intend to meet some great people here, and can only wish that me and my contributions will help in the growth of this fine social experiment.

Thank you for having me,
- The Capm

Online gaming is a fantastic thing. It allows strangers to hop on their gaming machine of choice and start wreaking havoc down upon those who dare cross the digital representations of themselves. Sometimes friends and bonds, stronger than even those created by physical interaction could ever unearth, emerge in a glorious explosion of robotic parts and decaying flesh.

But if you're as in to the old school as me, then you just can't get enough of that good ol' split screen action. You and three of your buddies cramming yourselves on to a converted futon in a room with a mini fridge crammed full of Mt. Dew sitting anxiously in the corner. Whipping out the classics, like Goldeneye, Smash Bros, and Mario Kart; along with the new gooduns: Halo 3, Left 4 Dead, and Dokapon kingdom. Experiences like that are what gaming is all about.

But what happens when you're all having a good time playing a few rounds of Boom Blox when one of your friends starts bitching for no reason.

So what do you do? You want everyone to be happy, so you switch out the game. Let's try... Castle Crashers!

10 minutes in:
"What the fuck, I can't even fucking make contact with my arrows, this game is dumb... ah! oh... oh, look at that, that weird ass polar bear just punched me in the goddamned face and now I'm dead, someone revive me... No, wait, nvm, I'm dropping out."

And just like that, the mood is ruined and we try to figure it out so everyone is happy. But alas, the cycle does not end.

This cycle, my Dtoid friends, is why I suck at games.

I have picky friends that all hate different games for different reasons, and mainly because I am the only one with a decent enough job to even own these game systems and games, so they are completely unfamiliar with it all. The kicker is that they all do enjoy video games, they just don't all agree on what game to play.

Now, I'm not saying that my friends are all noobs, or that I'm a pro, because that is not the case at all. I am actually quite very busy and don't have any where close to enough time to play games as much as I'd like. In fact, despite my time constraints, I don't even enjoy solo gaming nearly as much as I enjoy multiplayer. So since about 75% of my time playing is with friends, I'm never on a particular genre long enough to get good at it.

Basically what I'm saying is that when it comes time for me to actually want to play it solo and hop on to the online communities to try my skills out there, my face thusly gets used as a mopping tool for the digitally mapped floor. My destroyed self-esteem then disallows me to continue online, so i crack open the DSi and play some Professor Layton's to at least prove to myself that though my thumbs may not be worthy, my brain is still here and working.

This is why I suck at games, and thank you for reading.

- Capm Trevo

Every week I make a trip down to Fry's Electronics and randomly purchase a 30-dollar-or-less anime series. It allows for cheap entertainment and neat new discoveries including solid story lines, interesting art, or even awesome references to things completely "out there." The above screenshot is from the anime "Magical Shopping Arcade: Abenobashi." It's from Episode 9 of the series (out of 15). It is clearly a sighting of our beloved Destructoid mascot, and I thought I should share this amazing find with the rest of the community. On a side note, I actually really enjoyed this Anime series and recommend it to all of you japanimation lovers out there who have not yet experienced this sleeper hit wonder.