After having a little look-see at some statistics because of sheer boredom, i see that the average gamer age is steadily rising each year, and in a lot of countries, it is well into the 20's. I feel saddened and insulted at narrow-minded people who think gaming is a childish phase that they expect everyone to grow out of. We're the generation who've grown up with vidya games in our hands, and it seems like they're attached with industrial strength super glue. We grew up in the prime of video gaming evolution, where games made the transition from 2D to 3D, and the technology to make a game almost realistic is drawing near. Video games are also becoming more and more violent and confrontational, and it would seem that soon phrases like: 'don't play video games' and 'grow up' won't be used in the same sentence.

It's a little hard to imagine how a small kid born 30 years from now would react to his first gaming experience. He's probably going to play some game with insane graphical definition, almost identical to real life. This would be like gazing directly into a light bulb after 10 years of complete darkness. Most likely by then though there will be some new hip/cool thing that all the little rascals will be into, and we'll be classed as lame for "gaming." And then, the cycle will repeat. I'd like to believe that video gaming will be forever, but at one point no one even thought about the concept of video gaming, and so there's gotta be something that no ones thought of that has the potential to allure a new generation. Perhaps we will reach some bullshit age of intelligence and wisdom, and barbarities such as gaming will be deemed as lower classed, and gamers will be dubbed a waste of life. Who knows.

Point is; Gamuh fo' lyf, hater's best keep their mouf shut.

I finally got around to spending some quality time on Left 4 Dead. After many hours of slaving away over school assignments and other meaningless things, it was time to party... And so I partied the best damn way i know how. I Played a good solid 4 hours of Left 4 Dead before I realised that i may have been on my way to appearing like a zombie as well. And just as I remember it, the game is absolutely hilarious. It seems that when in a time of crisis and suffering, hilarity is multiplied by 10. It's good to see that people also see it from my perspective. Instead of stereotypical serious gamer who screams into their mic when being shot by a team mate, I was always paired with light-hearted, funny individuals. It got to the point when we'd get to a Witch, and we'd all agree, "Why not? ;D" and spook it in delightfully creative ways, then taking it down for the enjoyment instead of bypassing it stealthily like a good little gamer should.

A good amount of time was spent on survival mode, and most of the time on the Gas Station level. My first experience of survival mode was being spawned, then instantly being blown across the map by one of my team mates shooting at the gas station in the opening seconds of the round. It made my day. We messed around for a while, and as i was Zoe, i decided to dance around on top of a flaming barrel, and make sub-standard puns about how hot i was. Many lols were had, but eventually we got down to business and gave the mode a good crack.

Pretty odd to be blogging about a random couple hours of gaming, but it's probably the only nerd time i will get to myself for the next 3 or 4 weeks. In conclusion; lighten up serious gamers. Go eat dirt.

Words cannot describe the mixed emotions I am having right now... If you head on over to google you will see that it's Earth Day today! Take a closer look at the picture there... Yep, it's the Triforce. Now, I'm a Zelda fan myself, so you know that i shat myself when my eyes gazed upon this masterpiece. Did the artist know what he was doing? Did he know that he created a symbol of Power, Courage and Wisdom? Who knows.

Regardless if it was just a coincidence, or he really does have a lust for classic gaming, it is undoubtedly the greatest thing i have seen all day.

Begin rant... NOW. I was happily enjoying my life, getting through my day-to-day activities and adventures. When suddenly, i received an email from Microsoft Xbox Live. It basically informed me that my gold membership will be automatically renewed later this month. As of late, I'm not that into consoles, and have grown into more of a PC gamer. I hadn't played consoles for a good month or two, so i decided that i'd cancel the renewal. I fired up the xbox360, and had a browse through my subscription and payment settings. Now what really pissed me off was the fact that i couldn't even cancel auto-renewal on my xbox360, and that i never turned renewal on in the first place. No matter, i logged into xbox.com.au and had a look around to see if i could turn it off there. No banana. After having a search around, i found out that i had to call up Xbox360 customer support.

I HATE calling Xbox360 customer support.

So anyway, I bit the bullet, and gave them a ring. Surprisingly, I was only on hold for about 30 seconds. But, yet again, the person on the other end of the line was shockingly diacritically challenged. I couldn't understand half of the things she was muttering. I still acted like i did though, just so things didn't get weird. What was different about my past experiences is that she actually had a personality. She laughed at subtle jokes i made, and even went as far as to ask me what games i liked to play. I told her that i didn't play anything on it anymore, and she giggled at that too.

Aside from all that, she was still a whore of Microsoft, which made me mad. When i asked to cancel my renewal, she said she was going to delete my gamertag. I repeated what i wanted, and she finally agreed to do that. She asked me a few security questions, but would cut me off regularly and ask me new questions. After finally getting through all of the security crap, she asked me some of the stupidest shit i have ever heard.

"Are you sure you want to cancel?"

"Are you sure a friend doesn't want to pay your membership for you?"

"Instead of cancelling auto-renewal, would you like me to read out a line-up of games coming soon for the Xbox360?"

Bitch, i know what i'm doing. Its one thing for Microsoft to make us have to call up customer support to cancel something that i didn't even choose to turn on, but it's another thing to tell the customer support employees to pull the shit that she did. I know it's her job and all, but damn, I wanted to destroy everything that she has ever loved or believed in.

I'm not mad Microsoft, I'm just disappointed.
(Which is apparently so much worse.)

Now dont get me wrong, I'm not someone who always plays games on easy. Although I'm a casual gamer, I normally play on medium to high difficulty. However I'm sure we all know someone who constantly plays the same campaign time after time, with the difficulty as low as it can go, or with enemy bots as dumb as a doorknob. Until today, I would usually give them a piece of my mind and try to convince them to leave their comfort bubble known as 'easy'. But after a short investigation into the matter, I think I see where they are coming from.

Why do we play games? To eventually be the strongest, the fastest, the best, and to have fun. Now let's start to break it down. Everyone wants to feel like an unstoppable beast/hero/manbearpig when playing, right? You wanna charge through all of your enemies at lightning speeds, and demolish all in your way... because it's fun. I think you see where I'm going with this. When people start on easy, they are instantly shot into a world of false reality, and they believe they are the greatest thing since videogame porn. From the very beginning, they can take down anyone and feel like a god, without even having to train for it. Let's take this a little deeper, shall we?

When playing something like an MMORPG, you level, and therefore can fight higher level monsters. Most of the time, people are going into territory with monsters they can just defeat, and half of their health is lost in a single battle. Every now and then however, you'll see some level 20 in a level 10 area. Don't know what they are doing there? You do now. Because it's easy! They can tear through mobs of those monsters without a scratch on them! If they are deluded and nerdy enough, they can feel like king of the world. They wouldn't do it because it's boring for them, now would they? They obviously think it's fun. And that's what we're all out to do, yeah?

Now let's have another look at the hardcore difficulty players. If you can fly through games on insane mode and you're having fun, great! But I'm also certain that there has been one point in our videogaming careers where that last death just didn't sit right with you, and some blood began to boil, or your tv got a controller imprinted on the screen. If you're not having fun, bump it down a notch! It's ok! Nothing bad will happen. Infact, you'll find yourself harder, better, faster and stronger than ever before! And most importantly you'll be enjoying yourself, which is the primary goal of games, isn't it?

To sum up, I'm not saying play all games on easy. I sure don't. But if you know someone who does, take into consideration what i've written here. Perhapse they were bullied as a child, and need to create a Barbarian Warrior and kill level 1 bears to deal with it. Or maybe they just wanna go crazy, rape and pillage, and most importantly; have a bit of fun.

The infamous Gary Oak. The badass of the Pokemon world. Many of you who have had the delight of meeting him in battle would most likely see him as the biggest bastard in video game history. He would always be there when you are down to your last Pokemon, and inches away from a Pokemon Center. But why all the hate? He's a Pokemon trainer. Just like you! He wants to be the very best as much as you, possibly moreso. Yet the game seems to lean more towards your direction, and requires you to defeat Gary Oak in order to progress through certain areas in the game.

This is an outrage! Imagine if you defeated Gary, and then the game warped back 5 minutes, and allowed him to try again until he defeated you. Wouldn't you be a little pissed off? Can you honestly blame him for his cocky attitude towards you, and life in general? In fact, even his own grandfather seems to resent him. Professor Oak allows you, the enemy of his grandson, to choose a Pokemon before him. And when Gary questions the situation, he is immediantly told to be patient and wait his turn. But, being the good sport that Gary is, he politely chooses his Pokemon after you.



When you get a new console, game, or what ever it may be, you obviously want to play with it, yeah? Well, Gary just got a new Pokemon. Is there any harm in wanting to have a little battle to see how it fights? Of course not. Now, specifically in the first battle with him, this can go one of two ways. Let's first take a look at if you beat him.



Not only is he humiliated and crushed from defeat, but you decide to mug him for $175. This enrages me. You had to rub it in, didn't you? You have cause his very first Pokemon to faint on it's first battle, and then you mug him. To be honest, in any normal trainer battle I wouldn't really have any problems with mugging them after you crush their dreams. But now lets take a look at what happens when he defeats you for the first time.



That's all. A few words of happiness. This part of the game is the only time he will ever be able to defeat you and you dont have to repeat the battle, (even though you can just start again, or load a save game) and he just says a few words. Honestly, how can you tell me he isn't a great guy? And you think he took some money off of you? Think again. Check your cash.



Not a single penny missing. I hope you have learned a valuable lesson today. Think twice before naming him something like 'ASSHOLE' or 'DICK'. Name him something like 'Buddy' or 'Pal'. You are going to defeat him countless times, and even if he defeats you, you'll just come back as if the situation never happened and try again until you get your way. Give him a break. He is taking all the blows here. So when you see him walk up to you, realise that he knows you're going to beat him in that battle eventually, but he will fight so you can progress, and grow into a stronger trainer, and even provide you with some cash along the way.

You may defeat him again 'n' again, and you'll become the greatest Pokemon trainer of them all... But he will always be around the next corner, waiting for you to defeat all of his pokemon, and mug him one more time.