A long time ago, like last year, I made a posted about how I was talking video games with this Autistic kid at my father-in-law's house. Well I just got back in town after a week of visiting them and the whole trip pretty much sucked except for when I let this kid play WoW.

The first thing he did was create an undead rogue named "Undersneaky". When I asked the nine year old why he picked that name he informed me that "when The Undertaker and sneaky combine they form... UNDERSNEAKY!". I found his answer satisfactory.

I showed him the basic mechanics of the game and within five minutes he was running around having a good time. Then he came across some monsters that attacked and killed him. As he looked at the corpse on the screen he said the greatest thing I've ever heard a nine year old say...

"Those guys just started attacking me... they are maniacs... like cops".

Originally Sean Sands posted an article arguing that we are living in a golden age of gaming. Then Nintendoll posted her thoughts arguing against this statement, to which Mogg posted his response, which now leads to my thoughts on the issue.

During the "retro" days of gaming when NES was at it's prime I was there. I was also old enough to understand what was happening in the industry. If I look back and let nostalgia take hold I'll have nothing but warm and fuzzy memories of how awesome things were back then. The truth is that they were awesome, but it wasn't because games were better or the industry was creating an environment of greatness. It was because I was a young man with little to no real responsibility and video games were something exciting and new. I finally had the power to control what was on the television screen and it felt good.

We can skip all the talk about the classic games that fill our hearts with joy, every era of every form of media will have some gems in the pile of gravel. The truth is that it was a time of intense marketing and games filling the market whose advertisements were more entertaining than the games themselves. It's very much the same today except that now we are living in a unique situation where gaming has evolved into a culture instead of hobby of novelty.

What solidifies the idea that we are living in a golden age for me as a PC gamer isn't the amount of good titles that are released or features of new consoles. It's that I can spend around $50 for a good game and enjoy the experience of playing that game for years. I can do a simple internet search for "LAN Party" and find lists of times and places where I can go meet up with hundreds of other gamers and enjoy playing games together. I don't see how after all the talk of PAX and NARP's going on anyone can claim we are living in something other than THE golden age of gaming.



Remember when you first played Super Mario Bros. and you thought about how cool it would be if you could make levels for it? Well now, in this age, you can. Not only can you make levels for Super Mario Bros. but if you love Team Fortress 2 you can make levels for that which people will download and actually play. Hell, people are creating games by themselves out of their bedrooms and releasing them to the public for people to play.

Right now I'm sitting in an IRC chatroom talking about video games, while posting a blog about video games which will be read by other gamers, after which I will sign on to Steam to see what current sales there are on video games that I can dowload and play with the click of a button, and while playing those games I can speak through a microphone and actually speak to people playing the same game I am who live across the country.

This is the golden age. From here on out we need only sit back and smile waiting for the platinum age... I hope I'm alive long enough to see it.

One of my favorite things about having a PC is that when something breaks after a few years you have the option of either replacing it with the same part... or upgrading. Upgrading is awesome, not only does it usually end up improving your gaming experience, but let's be honest, it's always nice to get new toys.

This mouse is old and busted:



For the past month my nearly one year old son has gotten into the habit of attacking my Logitech MX510 optical mouse. By attacking I mean pulling it off the desk, yanking on the wires, and trying his best to shove the whole thing in his mouth. The result of this assault has been that it's started taking a shit on me, to the point that it has been performing worse than a crusty trackball at random points while using it. This is no good when you're leading a headshot across a battlefield.

So I did what had to be done. I loaded the family up into the car and headed to Fry's where I picked up a lovely Logitech G5 laser. Not only is it an outright upgrade in terms of sensitivity but it has lots of nifty options my MX510 did not. For instance I can now avoid the trouble of a light handed mouse by using the weights that come with the mouse (which are housed inside a metal case that says G5 on it... sexy). I can also switch between three different DPI settings with the push of a button on the mouse. If you're not sure what that means let me explain:

I'm playing an FPS and I'm running around the field. I'll want to use a lower DPI setting which allows for more mouse movement without the camera flying all over the place. I spot a target far away and zoom in while at the same time clicking the button to raise my DPI. This gives me more direct control over where the sight of my gun will be increasing the accuracy. This is very nice.

The other thing I like better than the MX510 is that it has a rough almost sandy feeling surface. During extended gaming sessions the mouse will not become slippery and hard to operate due to sweaty hands. Oh and if you're going to say "I've never had a problem with my mouse getting to sweaty to use" then let me tell you that you've never had an actual EXTENDED gaming session.

This mouse is new and sexy:


Now I'm sure some will point out that there are better mice for whatever reasons. On paper some may seem better but when taking into account that I've been using an MX510 for years and the basic design of the G5 is the same, there is not really an adjustment period. It's just using a better piece of hardware instantly.

Now I'm off to play with my new toy.

Having finally gotten around to playing BioShock I settled down in front of my PC and got to work. I was blown away not only with how amazing the game looked but with the story from the beginning. Normally when a game comes out with a lot of hype around it I tend to back off and wait for things to cool down before I play it. I want to develop and an opinion without the feedback of everyone else.

So far I have to say that the credit this game was given was totally on point. Aside from one huge problem I have had.

*SPOILER ALERT*




Playing through to the point where I entered Langford's office to search the safe I was confronted with a horrible bug/glitch. The safe is empty, thus not allowing me to progress any further in the game. I've re-installed, started the game over, basically every step one would take to fix the problem and it hasn't helped. As I've searched for a solution I've found that this has happened with other people and not just on PC, there are also Xbox players who are reporting this bug. I've posted on the 2k forums and gotten zero response.

It's very disappointing to say the least. Getting myself into a game that is fun and with a great story is such a rare thing these days. I hate seeing it ruined by such a glaring error. You would think that by now 2k would have stepped up and done something about this, I mean it's not a simple bug where an enemy freezes or something that prevents you from getting an achievement. It's a game stopping glitch. I really wish companies would put more effort into uncovering and fixing these type of issues.

So until a solution comes up I'm left with a partially finished game... yay.

Spent several hours earlier playing through Mercenaries 2 on my PC and I still have mixed feelings. The menu design is probably my favorite thing about this game so far. It's really good looking and upon loading the game I was actually excited about playing it. I even considered taking a few screenshots to use as my desktop background.

Once I began playing the game my opinion started shifting. To begin with the controls feel muddy, as if I have an old trackball mouse and it's sticking... except I don't and it's not. It could just be that I'm used to a certain type of pinpoint targeting perfection due to using a keyboard and mouse to play games. While I can forgive some of this due to the fact that the game is third person, that forgiveness only goes so far, especially when games like Ghost Recon had it perfect years ago.



When it comes to the story I feel like they shouldn't have bothered. Much like the early GTA incarnations the plot line serves only to give you an excuse to fuck shit up... which I'm fine with. Like so many big budget action movies, this game has been entertaining to a degree but I'm left feeling slightly empty and ashamed that I didn't use my time to play something more interesting. The characters feel like they come straight out of that abortion of a film "Smokin' Aces"... I mean one of the main characters has a fauxhawk... that's just not acceptable.

I'll probably play it again later just to see if things change up, but I most likely won't finish the game. There are too many other games to play, too many books to read, and too many movies to see to invest time into something this bleh.

My Sunday ritual began as usual. I got into the car and headed to the Dollar Store down the street to pick up a few pregnancy tests and some meat tenderizer. I grabbed my items and as I was walking towards the register I noticed some 3" Mega Man figures sitting on a shelf. They were all connected to some plastic display board type thing and I figured that six bucks wasn't a bad deal so I picked them up. When I checked out the cashier only counted the whole plastic display thing as one item.

So now for $1.00 even (there is no sales tax in Oregon) I have six 3" Mega Man figures.