Epic Default Productions

Let’s be honest with ourselves; 2008 wasn’t a good year for gaming, it wasn’t a great year for gaming, hell, you might think it was a landmark year for gaming, but none of these descriptions are really accurate.

It was, however, the first year the gaming industry was downright cruel to its consumers.

I’ve been trying, really trying, to get through every A-list title of 2008 — I’m not even close to beating most of them, and still haven’t even touched Prince of Persia, Fallout 3, FarCry 2, Fable 2, or Mirror’s Edge (among others I’ve probably forgotten). But, the end of 2008 is upon us, so despite this huge gap in my gaming experience this year, it’s time to make my picks for the first-annual Epic Default Ten.

Thankfully, it doesn’t all have to be games; indeed, the bent to this set of awards is pretty irreverent. Let’s get started, shall we?
(-Champion Standing Goes To…-)

I’ve been noticing a trend lately.

As one of my previous posts states, I was out of gaming for a long time, so this has probably been a problem for a while now, and it might be too late to fix. But that’s not going to stop me from bitching about it.

What happened to Multiplayer? No, I’m not talking about online gaming, I enjoy that. I think it’s an awesome innovation (for consoles, I realize it’s been around for a while on PCs). What I’m talking about is the invite your friends over to your place for an all out, split screen battle royal. Where did that go?

Oops, I said a dirty word, split screen. I can hear all of you shiver at the thought. You’re the people I’m looking at while I pound the keys to oblivion writing this. Most “multiplayer” games out there now require you to have an Internet connection, and your only interaction with your opponents outside of the physical game is through an earpiece and, in rare cases, a camera.

I’m probably going to catch a lot of flak for this, but that form of interaction disinterests me. I’d much rather have someone sitting next to me who I can beat with my controller when they are sniping me from some hidden location, or fucking up the drums on “Still Alive.”

Yes, I still play Halo, because it has split screen. The game itself is very meh, but the multiplayer aspect, be it online or in person, is still great to this day. Especially when you play “Drunken Halo”, the drinking game the other Fanboys and I came up with one night. If you’re looking for a quick way to get smashed, try it. I have yet to play Call of Duty 4 (it’s in my Game Q, relax) and Rock Band (I’m as pissed as you are), but I’m sure they would inspire the same joy that Halo does in me.

When GTAIV came out, and I heard it had a multiplayer, I was ecstatic. I envisioned my friends and I reeking havoc together within Liberty City. Needless to say, I was rather disappointed when I found it’s only online. However, that I can understand. The world is pretty damn big; so it would probably be a lot of searching for each other, followed by 10 seconds of a good firefight, then back to searching again.

You probably saw Anthony’s review on Mario Kart Wii, in which he asked Nintendo “What the Fuck?” when describing their multiplayer aspect. No longer can you have an all for one battle to see who is supreme. You now need teams, and I have to say, I agree with Anthony. I’m not even going to go into how much Brawl’s multiplayer sucked. I will say this though; cool your jets on the wide-angle lens.

I’m excited reading about Quantum of Solace, the next game in the 007 series. I think we all can agree that Goldeneye was the forerunner to multiplayer gaming on consoles. In turn we all can agree that, every other Bond game after that should probably be thrown into the same dump that ET is in. So when I hear that the same guys who did CoD4 are putting this game together, I get a little giddy.

So here’s an open request to Treyarch. Please, please, PLEASE keep the multiplayer on a single game. Don’t make me have to get on Xbox Live to play with others as Bond. Let’s be honest, the campaign mode, more than likely, will be underwhelming at best. And if that’s the case, it will be hard for me to get my friends to buy it, just to play online. Please, let me, this one last time, invite my friends over, order a pizza, let the beverages flow, and have a fun night of actual, social gaming.

I’ll get off my knees now.

Where it really ticked me off was Burnout Paradise. The Burnout franchise is screaming for multiplayer. The split screen driving on the previous games were just a schizophrenic joyride through the streets looking for your next target. Paradise moved that online, too. So now I have to get my friends to get the game, just to have some sort of multiplayer fun with it.

I think I may have just found the reasoning behind this. Like most things, it’s the almighty dollar. Why put a decent multiplayer system for home gaming in a game, when, if you take that out, more people with have to buy the game in order to play with each other? Then, more than likely, you’ll have to spend more money to get the Internet connection, and, in Microsatan’s case, more money to be able to use that connection to play your game with others.

And people wonder why the game prices are so high. It’s not the cost of production, packaging, shipping, whatever. It’s the fact that we are willing to pay that much, simply out of necessity. The sad part is I have no ideas as to how to fix it. They snuck this under our nose and we allowed them to do it. Now, it’s such a nail in the gaming universe, that the only way to stop it, is to give up gaming all together. That’s a situation that has a zero to nil chance of ever happening.

Jesus, time to schedule another Drunken Halo night.

Please digg this

**I’m going to be out of town so I’m doing this in a bit of rush. I apologize beforehand for any bad grammar/spelling**

This is how it is bound to happen. I have no idea what the hell to write about and then I have a “conversation” with Jon and vuala; an idea. What spawned this little rant or moment of reflection or stream of consciousness (or all the above for that matter) was a comment that Jon made when I was talking about Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I was saying how I’m not a big fan of either and though it may be popular, it doesn’t define nerd culture of today. His comment in response to this was that I am out of touch with nerd culture.

(This is going to get philosophical and serious quickly so I warn you now in hopes that you won’t start bitching at me three quarters of the way through this.)

I’m going to take a moment to give a little background because I think it’ll help to give a better picture of myself. I’m a pretty big nerd in multiple respects, but I approach my nerddom in the same way that I approach many aspects of my life. I always try to be a jack-of-all-trades. One who learns of the many aspects of a subject in attempt to master, or at least be knowledgeable, in each. So, when it comes to being a nerd, I like to partake in board/card gaming, tabletop, LARP, video gaming, anime, comic books, etc. It’s fun and intriguing what you find in each.

This ultimately left me to attempt to answer the question, am I in touch with nerd culture? I figure for simplicity sake we can start at video games and expand our view from there. Lately I do play a limited number of video games. I like to play games that either have a) a good storyline/character development, b) some fun stuff I can just shut off my brain and do, or c) a multi-player option so that I can play the game with friends. The problem with Guitar Hero for me is that it doesn’t fit any of those categories, even the “shut off your brain” concept. I’d rather do that for a first-person shooter then what equates to a rhythm game. That’s a gaming concept I could never really sink my teeth into. Also I know some will say that Guitar Hero is multiplayer and while that may be true, I have yet to amongst a group of friends where everyone wants to play the game at least once. In fact I’ve seen the moments that lead up to a drunken girl cheat on her boyfriend while he was too busy trying to master Bark At The Moon on expert. But hey, that’s the way it works.

image is property of Randall Munroe and taken from XKCD

I will make the following caveat before I continue any further on this subject though. I certainly do see the merit of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. People shouldn’t just stop playing it if they enjoy it. I may see it as a fleecing game of sorts. I may think that it really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and would rather just get a copy of the records of some of these artists and sit down and enjoy the music without all the damn clinking. It may not be entertaining to me but I’m not going to yelling at you while you are trying to play in a woeful attempt to stop you from having fun.

What I will say is this, in attempt to answer the question of being out of touch to nerd culture. No singular game, in any form, incarnation, series, resurrection, etc captures the entirety of what is nerd. Hell even genres can’t do that. Video gaming is not nerd culture. Neither is D&D, Firefly, Vampire, Settlers, or FLCL. The epiphany so many people forget or ignore is that it is all of them. The thought process of most nerds though ultimately leads to a shortsighted view that he/she and his/her followers are the penultimate sect. You are not the prophets. No jihad of gaming to cleanse nerddom of the infidels is needed. Just do your thing. Enjoy, be happy and embrace yourself. You may not always agree with the tastes of other nerds, but you cannot deny them of their calling. Go ahead and try if it really makes you happy but you are going to lose opportunities for friendships with cool people, seclude yourself from whole other worlds of entertainment, enlightenment, and education, and you will look like an ass. Don’t blame me for pointing it out if that’s the way you’re acting. Trust me, you’ll deserve it and yes, it is necessary.

Criticism is usually dished out by people who can’t take it, so I whole-heartedly invite people to critique me. Give me your thoughts and though we may agree to disagree we will find a truth in the work. The connection may be hard to see, but it is a bond that is nearly impossible to sever. Let nerds see the light and become the thing they always dreamed to be, a society of outcast that rise up to revolutionize the world. Let us not be our own worst enemies. Our dedications may differ but our hearts are one in the same.

Please, find love in your heart, and digg this