Last night while 22 million people were watching Game 5 of the World Series the last thought entering their collective minds was likely about video games. More particularly the memories they had of a lifetime playing video game.

The nostalgic sounds of Mayor Haggar grunting as he piledrives a young transsexual prostitute.

The fantastic platforming controls of Sands of Time that causes muscle memory to take over whenever there's no combat around.

The taste of cherry coke that will forever be associated with late nights of playing KOTOR in a room that could double as a Iranian dungeon.

None of these people watching this baseball game of much importance where having these thoughts but me.

I've come to the realization that along with manipulable stories about space marines and princes of the cosmos that fill my heart with satisfying glee are sports games that give me the same amount of enjoyment. But over time I have seen myself playing and purchasing less sports games year after year. It seems strange that the more I get serious about playing games the more I abandon the sports genre for games that I tell myself are more meaningful because their not about something I can go and do myself. Which kinda brings me to my point of why we play video games in the first place, a form of escapism.

Sports games allows the weak bespectacled asthmatic gym student to live out his dream of playing for the Miami Heat just as other games would fulfill people's dreams of killing giant mutants with a portable nuclear launcher in the wasteland of Washington D.C. they both sound equally as interesting for neither of them being something I could accomplish. As any group of games sandwiching together under a predetermined label has it's share of faults. Yearly release schedule with minuscule improvement put these games in the perspective of being nothing more than monetary scapegoats for big publishers which while might be true there are developers who try to make these games better than it's previous incarnation. However the rise of exclusive contracting forces these games to lose the risk of competition and in turn the reason for true innovation.

These quips with major sports titles however used to be balanced out by the fun arcade sports games which allowed little to no knowledge of actual sports (which I prefer being that know very little about sports) but they too were a casualty of sales.

To wrap up my own personal rant that has probably been written better by somebody else on this site but was to lazy to look up and to read what started this need to talk about sports games click on the link below.

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-top-7-things-we-hate-about-sports-games/a-2009102914332923074

I have a lifetime of memories of playing video games.

Like spending hundreds of hours of playing NBA Street Vol.2 to get a team with the absolute perfect stats.

Asking for NBA 2K4 for Christmas along with Prince of Persia and Tony Hawk's Underground.

Or getting my very first video game system the Genesis and playing Sega's World Series Baseball



(P.S. Sorry Samit about Game 5 but instead of jinxing the Yankees by saying their going to win here's something better.)

As I write this article the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott has reached 24,000 members strong and growing (which I presume is from them asexually reproducing.) with that I decided to chip in with my two cents. But instead of condemning these ravenous wolves in tapped glasses I’m going a different direction and trying look at the situation through their eyes.

Now this isn't me agreeing with the boycotters and it's not me disagreeing with Destructoid's own Jim Sterling who I think is a smart and fine gentleman who i would follow till the ends of the earth.



Building up to E3 we all knew Valve was going to unveil something huge. The most likely of candidates being Episode 3, Postal 2, or the release date of the Team Fortress 2 updates coming to Xbox Live. Instead Left 4 Dead 2 was announced and people went with a lack of a better term APESHIT!

The most common complaints being
Daylight is gay.
Chargers are gay.
Axes, Chainsaws, and Baseball Bats are gay.
Incendiary Bullets are gay.
Witches that walk around instead staying in one spot really isn’t scary.
Left 4 Dead 2 gave their father prostate cancer and raped their mother.

Another big complaint is the game is going to take away development from Left 4 Dead which has already been denounced as false. So what could still be upsetting these people so bad.

It’s that these aren’t just Left 4 Dead fans their Valve fans. Valve fans who accept that the company deals with things in a different way. But with the release of Left 4 Dead 2 everything we thought we knew of Valve is wrong. They are able to release games in orderly fashion which begs the question where is Episode 3. See in a weird way that’s what I think the boycotters are upset about they don’t mind that the game is coming out they mind that that is going to be the only thing coming out from Valve in 2009. They also believe this is some kind of sign that Valve is losing it’s independent spirit and pushing toward being a carbon copy of EA and Activision. I personally can’t wait for Left 4 Dead 2 which I feel is more of a companion piece then a full on sequel but I’m still upset that I have to wait another year to finish Half Life 2, another year without Portal 2 and another year of playing a neutered port of Team Fortress 2.

I know I may sound like a spoiled brat who can’t just be happy with what he has and be patient for what he might get. But that’s because I’m looking through the eyes of a Left 4 Dead 2 boycotter.

(P.S. I didn't know but according to the boycott's main page Jim Sterling has ants in his vagina. That is all.)