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I am l33t!!!!

I’m posting this on my l33t new system amd 64 3500+, ATI radion x800 pro. I’ve only got 512 ram currently since the other stick of 512 i have prevents teh machine from booting. So I need to order some of that “mached pair” stuff.

But my system is l33t enough to play Doom3! So yes, contrary to a prior post, I bought Doom 3 (unfortunatly, the Ban Doom site doesn’t seem to be up any longer).

The first thing I noticed about Doom 3 was how little I noticed the graphics. They because instantly naturalized for me. Of course I had seen lots of screenshots before playing it, but I was surprized that I wasn’t really wowed by the graphics. They are, of course, awesome, but the game comes on and that’s what it looks like, and I just sort of acccept that. It is only when I consciously compare it to other games, that I notice the graphics.

The second thing I noticed was the damn cut scenes! AARRGGGHHH!!!! Why? Why? Why? That was the first thing I was afraid of those years ago when we first saw some E3 footage. As of yet, aside from teh introductory cut scene, I really haven’t seen any reason why they have to go to these stupid cut scenes to either advance the plot or show the monster crawling out of the wall. If I care about teh plot, I will look at the people talking. There are planty of monsters jumping out that scare me. Perhpas the monster slowly coming out at me is supposed to be some sort of slow reveal/paralyzed by fear type of thing. Unfortunatly, the only thing it does for me is piss me off when I can see the damn (see, damn, demons. It isn’t cussing if they really are damned!) monster coming at me and I can’t shoot at it or back away from it and I have to act the isntant they give me back control. But I don’t know when they will deem to allow me to control the character again, so I’m constantly impatient and worrying it will take half a second for me to react to being a player and not a watcher and the stupid cut scene will cost me some health. CU7 5C3N35 R teh 5UCK!!!!

Happy Birthday to ME!

It is my birthday! I’m 31. Weeeeeeeeee!!!

Haven’t been playing many games lately. Been busy with the school starting again. Watched Video Game Revolution on PBS last night. Nothing that other documentaries haven’t gone over a million times before, but entertaining at least. Of course, we saw all the usual suspects interviewed: Steven Kent, Nolan Bushnell, Henry Jenkins and the like. So I guess since this is at least the 3rd Videogame history that has appeared in the past 5 years, we can see the canonization of videogame history being built. Atari, but they stole it from Baer, then they sold it to Warner brothers, then Nintendo came along, then there was Doom and some kids killed people and Grand Theft Auto is a great game but morally questionable (note: that is the ideology of these programs, not me. I have a hard time taking seriously claims from people who haven’t played the game, because every time i try to go on a killing spree in GTA3 the cops are on me in a heartbeat). While they did talk about violence a bit, at least our good friends Dave Grossman and Jack Thompson weren’t mentioned (and thankfully, neither was Robert Thompson) nor was there any talk of rape in Grand Theft Auto. However, there was a lot of minor errors, or deceits. Showing Vice City while talking about GTA3 and showing Super Nintendo games while still talking about the NES.

The most interesting thing about these docs though, is that they make it seem like the US is the main contributor to gaming. Even when they mention Japan, they don’t really mention the impact of Japanease games. And Europe and other parts of the world? Unless you are talking about Tetris, forget about it. I’m interested in getting some more of an international perspective. Besides the interesting Game Over is there anything about the history of videogames that isn’t explicitly about America?

Something I saw somewhere else…

Well, I’m trying to ease off of the instant buyer’s remorse of buying a new computer. I just put my orders in for the parts and although my current desktop is old (Athlon 1900+) the thought of spending the money shocks me. Oh well, I ordered some l33t components. Athlon 3500+ (with the fancy new socket) Radeon x800, gig of ram. Watch out all you lamers, i’m coming after you!

But I was surfing around over at water cooler games and saw the link to the interesting Gamespot article, Redefining Games: How Academia is Reshaping Games of the Future, which is the longest article I can remember ever seeing on Gamespot. Despite not having a printer friendly link that I can see, author Lauren Gonzalez does a good job of covering the bases. It links to several game blogs, but of course not mine! (But then again there are tons of gaming blogs that don’t link to me even though they link to any other fly by night blogs… but I’m not bitter or anything…;-)

The article ends on the interesting note of asking people what person unrelated to the field of games–famous or not, dead or alive–they would chose to be a game developer. The answers are pretty interesting and revealing of a persons theoretical standing. Of course, that begs the question of who I would choose. Honestly, I don’t have a solid answer to such a question because I spend so little time theorizing games (and most of my time theorizing players and the appeals of playing, which is of course related, but as my high school principal once said, “It’s the same, but different.”). Musically, I think I might pick Led Zeppelin from the height of their careers, or the Flaming Lips. I think it might be interesting to have the guy who makes up the New York Times Crossword puzzle make a game. If I were cruel, I would suggest that it would be great if the makers of Final Fantasy made a game, but I’m not cruel enough to say that… 😉 From art, I would second Salvador Dali or Escher. But it would also be a very tranquil experience to have Bob Ross rise from the grave and design a game. From the realm of literature? I seem to be drawing a blank on that one… Man, I am just grumpy today.

On that note, I will wrap this up. In the past couple days I’ve ran into a couple of people that say they read my blog. I just want to give a shout out to my peeps. Thanks for reading!

Is it art or is it commerce?

I’m in the midst of unpacking, so this might not make much sense. Be warned!

I’ve been thinking about the state of videogame theory. I was over at the fairly newly launched GameBlogs.org and realized that it seems that all those who study games really aren’t studying the same thing. It seems there is a large amount of crossover between people who make games and academics. There are a lot of game makers who theorize and a lot of theorists who make games. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

In one sense, the interaction between the two is a good thing. It lets each side see things from the other side. I’m all for tearing down boundaries, and mixing things up.

However, on the other side, I would like to see a bit more separation between the two camps. I’m not sure I really all that interested in how to sell games or making better games or even using games for purposes other than to entertain. I don’t see that those have all that much to do with what I am interested in.

On some level, it is more of a personal problem. I don’t don’t want there to be a solid division between any approaches or goals to gaming. I’m just not sure that I want to read about some of those things. If I step back though, I think that the growing number of gaming blogs that have popped up in the two plus years since I started this site is a sign of the growth of the field. The fact that there are lots of sites that I don’t necessarily feel like they apply to me, and that I don’t feel the need to read regularly is a good thing, I guess.

Crystal Waters can relate

No posting latly since my lease on my old apartment ran out last Friday and my new apartment isn’t available untill noon this Friday. So I’m homeless, I’m homeless.

However, just a quick tip. I don’t know if I’m just dence, or what, but I’ve been going to Shacknews pretty frequently for a while now. However, it is only recently that I’ve started taking notice of their “Latest Interesting Comments” feature at teh top of the main page. It turns out that is where the REAL late breaking news often occurs. People will find out about it, post a message and often it will be news that won’t show up untill the next day, or it will be a link to some interesting pic or freeware.

While not entirely game related, it is a good way to keep track of the pulse of the gaming world. Also a study of it would be facinating in that it would show the spread of news and information that the internet allows.

German Doonsbury and Jack Thompson

Been terribly busy with the German class. I’m in the middle of doing hurried translations of some German-language videogame articles so I can write up an annotated bibliography and then go back to being a monolingual American!

This morning I saw that the comic strip Doonsbury had recently ran a week long series of strips about videogames. I hadn’t seen anyone mention it, so it is worth a read through if you haven’t seen it already.

Of course one of the stories that is getting the most buzz is the murder in the UK that is supposesd to involve the game Manhunt. Of course you know our good friend Jack Thompson had to get his nose involved. Some sources are even alledging the family of the murdered boy have hired him to sue Sony. Who knew that Jack was able to practice law outside of America? Of course now that the police have said that they don’t see any connection to the game, but that doesn’t seem to have caused Jack to say that he might have been wrong.

Young Lust

With the imminent release of DooM 3, I, like a lot of people, am thinking of upgrading my computer. I’ve currently got an Athlon 1900+ based home-built system. I am totally lusting after these newer systems. I always had overheating issues with this computer, so I do not think I will be building my own this time and so those small form-factor LAN party cases are SO tempting! However, I am going to try to wait a month or so.

In investigating from whom I am going to buy from, I am amazed at all the fancy cases and lighted cases and other flashy stuff that is on the market today. There are some obvious crossovers between the case-mod community and the muscle car guys (even down to using many of the same concepts and techniques). However, there is also a lot of model building involved with people making cases out of ammo boxes, and putting coffeemakers into cases.

The common thread in these similarities is that gaming, cars, and model building are all hobbies dominated by men. It is interesting to see how videogame players keep finding ways to perform their masculinity despite the stereotype of gamers as nerdy and rather unmasculine. So even we dorks can find activities that women are traditionally not active in! So this performing of masculinity is somewhat doubly bound, although case modding mimics car customizing, I don’t really think that having a tricked out computer has the same cultural capital in the larger non-gaming society as having a tricked out car.

I guess I’m a bit more old school though. I don’t want my case to have a window or to glow. I want my computer to look bland an unimportant but have a kickin’ motor under the hood.

Followup on German sources

A little while back I asked for some German-language references for a paper I have to write for my German class. Thanks to some helpfull posters as well as the kind people on the DIGRA mainling list, combined with my own research skills, I was able to find some articles that seem fairly interesting. I thought I would share them if any readers of German are curious:

Bruns, Karin. “Game Over? Narration und Spannung im Computerspiel.” Kulturrevolution. 45-46 (2003): 85-89.

Fritz, Juergen. “Action, Lebenswelten und Transfer.” medien+erziehung (merz), 47:1 (2003): 7-21.

Fritz, Jürgen and Wolfgang Fehr. “Identität durch Spiel: Computerspiele als Lernanreize für die Persönlichkeitsentwicklung.” Medien Praktisch. 4 (1999):30-32.

Gunzenhäuser, Randi. “Darf ich mitspielen? Literaturwissenschaften und Computerspiele.” September 22, 2003. July 20, 2004 .

— “Raum, Zeit und Körper in Actionspielen Max Payne.” dichtung-digital. March 31, 2002. July 20, 2004 .

Mathez, Judith. “Von Mensch zu Mensch. Ein Essay über virtuelle Körper realer Personen im Netz.” dichtung-digital. November 7, 2002. July 20 2004 .

Müller, Jörg. “Virtuelle Körper. Aspekte sozialer Körperlichkeit im Cyberspace.” 1996. July 20, 2004 .

Schindler, Friedemann. “Von Super Mario und Super Marion.” January 29, 1999. July 20, 2004 .

Suter, Beat. “Computerspiel und Narration.” netzliteratur.net. April, 10 2003. July 20, 2004 .

Wenz, Karin. “Computerspiele: Hybride Formen zwischen Spiel und Erzählung.” netzliteratur.net. March 5, 2003. July 20, 2004 .

— “Computerspiele und Kulturwissenschaften.” netzliteratur.net. April 3, 2003. July 20, 2004 .

I guess this means I have to work on translating them now…!

Long time no see

It has been a bit longer between updates than typical, but I’ve been busy. TV won’t watch itself!

And there is some interesting stuff on TV occasionally. On the otherwise dreadful G4TechTV one generally great and always interesting show is Icons, which features short half hour documentaries about videogame related topics. Friday they had a pretty good show on about DooM. Like all things on cable it will be on again soon. Bluesnews posted links to various videos of the episode.

One thing that I gathered from the episode was that Steven Kent, author of The Ultimate History of Video Games, among other things, is writing The Making of Doom III, which should be an interesting companion to David Kushner’s Masters of Doom.

OK, time to watch some more TV. I think this might be the one where Gilligan messes up their chance to get off the island!