Word Of The Day, Volume 4
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The last time I did a Word Of The Day post was waaaaaay back in early 2008. 2008? I've been writing on this blog a lot longer then I remember. Anyway, back to the show...er, hastily written post. Today's words of the day* are COMMON SENSE. Let us begin with the formal definition provided by Dictionary.com.

COMMON SENSE

-noun

sound practical judgement that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.

Common sense is a term that is used frequently in everyday conversation. For example: Common sense tells you that if you step in front of a moving bus you will get hurt. Or, if you are outside in the snow without gloves your hands will get cold. Common sense, right? Basic knowledge that the average person should just know. No additional schooling or thought is required to understand what is generally observed to be common sense. The problem with common sense is that not everyone actually has it. We examples of this every day, the funniest of which culminate in the annual Darwin Awards. I love to read about how the less observant and intelligent of those among us voluntarily remove themselves from our gene pool.

Another example of how people demonstrate a lack of common sense is through the media and legislative demonizing of video games. It seems that everyday brings us another story about how some government or media organization is pointing out how video games have brought upon us the downfall of society. Certain video games are outlawed in many countries on the grounds of "protecting the people". The media loves to point out that video games are the core fault of why our kids (and our society as a whole) is getting fat and/or stupid. Even President Obama thinks kids should put the controller down and study more. And who could forget that whole "sexbox" debacle surrounding the release of Mass Effect a couple of years ago? I know I remember that enlightening episode.

Now, here's where common sense comes into play: Video games are...Games. And as we all know games are for entertainment, for fun. I was watching my daughter play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion yesterday and I criticized her for playing the brigand by robbing and killing the NPCs that she ran across. She responded by making a logical statement. She said, "I play games because I can't do this stuff in real life". See, common sense.

*Disclaimer: In using the phrase "Word Of The Day" I am not stating that I will, in fact, write about a word every day. It just sounded better than "Word Of The Week" or "Word Of The Whenever The Heck I Feel Like Writing About A Word."
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Salutations And Apologies
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7 January 2010

It's been a while since I've written, and that is wholly my fault. The holidays and my vacation took a bit more out of me than I expected. What I need is a regular schedule to get my mind focused on the pursuits that I enjoy. Gotta have a bit of work mixed in with play or the play is meaningless. Anyway, about a week and a half to go until I start the Monday through Friday grind again. I'll try to get a bit more creative then. Until then, see ya.
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Flash Of The Moment
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30 December 09

Current events are often immortalized in the public eye by numerous methods. On TV, events and individuals are parodied or ridiculed by comedy shows, such as SNL and late night talk shows, and by "news" shows in the vein of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. In newspapers you often see people and events lambasted via the political cartoon medium and the op-ed section. The internet is a great place to find commentary on what's happening today. You have a myriad of choices available from sites like The Onion and Jib Jab to see commentary and have a little fun. And that's not all.

A fairly new and popular form of expression these days is a little more interactive than past efforts. Flash games aren't just for entertainment anymore. Just do a Google search on a celebrity that's been in the news for any embarrassing reason and I'm pretty sure you'll find a flash game for the offending incident. I found a site with a pretty good variety of games, a lot of them directed at misbehaving celebs.

Celebrity misadventures aren't the only fodder for flash games. Taking a look at the list of games on addictinggames.com's celebrity listings I see a few election games, celebrity smack downs, various movie related games and even a couple of the dress up type. Most of these games were relatively easy to make and are simple to play. The point of making a game like this is not to make a great game, but to bring awareness to a situation or to a specific idiot. Most flash games are made simply to have a bit of fun, often times at someone else's expense. Occasionally these games upset the subject, but they just need to remember one thing, it's just a game. These games do not mean much in the overall scheme of life, but they are a sign of the times. Flash games today are just one more step in the evolution of social commentary, and they certainly won't be the last.
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Hit And Miss DLC
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Downloadable content is an interesting proposition for games these days. Having additional game content available for download after a game has been released is a proven way for publishers and developers to add more revenue and value to their products. It is not uncommon these days to get new character skins, expanded or new single player levels, multiplayer maps or new weapons and vehicles for games that you have already played. This is usually good for the game publishers and developers, but it's not always good for you.

Take a look at the game add-on content available for Live or PSN and you will see the good, the bad and the ugly of the gaming world. The good, as I see it, are the additions of content that extend the playtime of a game. Adding a new area, level or multiplayer map is an excellent way to keep gamers playing long after the in box content has been exhausted. There are several good examples of this in action, such as Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and (of course) Halo 3. Both Mass Effect and Fallout 3 added new side quests for the player to complete. What makes these quests interesting and attractive for purchase is that even though these additions were not necessary for completion of the game, was for the simple fact that the content added more of what the core game was about. Contrasting this was Halo 3's content additions, no big story updates or single player enhancements were released. Simply put, more multiplayer maps were added, and for Halo 3 fans, that was all that was needed. Single player content for Halo? That's the unnecessary add-on.

There are plenty of examples of bad out there too. Music games are all the rage these days, and that means no shortage of new music downloads to accompany them. Downloading music tracks are a hit or miss affair, after all, it all depends on your taste in music. A definite miss seems to be the case for the tracks available for Rock Revolution. Compared to the other titles in this genre, Rock Revolution's track set is just plain anemic. All that is available for download from Live is a few covers of a very small group of old Pantera songs. Now, I like Pantera as much as the next man, but covers of the songs? If I'm going to pay for a track I would hope that it was from the original artist.

And now for the ugly. Looking through the add-on list I came across the 2K series of games. What caught my eye about these particular games was the very small size for the add-on content offer for them, chiefly, a "powerful replay editor". Seeing a 108 KB download for something described as powerful suggests only one thing to me-the content was already on the disc and you are paying an additional cost to be able to access it. My opinion on this type of tactic is simple. Since I paid the publisher in good faith for the game disc, all content on that disc should be available for play out of the box. Having to pay more for something that I, technically and physically, already own is pretty foul.
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No Color, Just Human
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Dealing with race relations has been a touchy subject in America for a very long time, and has no signs of becoming a non-issue anytime soon. Anywhere you look now you will see the remnants of ancient prejudices and outdated ideologies. I know that many ideas or programs in use today are based on race or ethnicity are supposed to help a large number of our population. I know that Black History Month was established, just as all the other designated months, to educate all people and cultures about the history of Americans with ancestry of African origins. I know that the NAACP was created to champion minorities that couldn't defend themselves and to better their lives. I know that affirmative action was designed to diversify the workforce and create a better representation of our country in job hirings. But in the end, what these groups or ideas do is to perpetuate the notion that people of different colors should be treated differently, but not what they should be teaching: That no group is either superior or inferior to anyone else.

Black history, while important, is no more vital than any other group's history and should deserve no more than equal recognition. How many people know that Italian Heritage Month is in October? The NAACP working to make lives better for people is a noble cause, but not if that mission promotes "reverse racism", meaning preferential treatment is awarded to minorities based on no more than ethnicity. My view: Racism is racism, reverse or otherwise. Affirmative action is one of those outdated policies that promotes reverse racism by specifically regulating hiring based solely on race. Again, racism is racism. That's how I feel when I see a game like BCFx on the shelves.

BCFx stands for Black College Football: The Experience. I know that the developers and publisher mean well with this game and have no negative intentions. I know that the game was created to celebrate the traditions and culture of HBCU (Historically Black College and University) teams. I also understand that the traditions in some of these institutions go back for over 150 years. What I don't understand is why in this day and age are we still touting our superficial differences instead of looking past them. I prefer to see the character and actions of an individual and form an opinion based on that. I don't find this game offensive, just unnecessary and unenlightened. I think it's time to stop identifying people based on race and focus on what really makes up an individual. And all of what makes us who we are is more than skin deep.
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A Perishable Skill
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I've been away from my PS3 for far too long. Want to know how I came to that astute observation? Because an 8 year old kid had a better kill ration than me playing a multiplayer match of COD 5. I have been hanging my head in shame since that day. Well, at least since it happened yesterday. OK, so here's what happened. I was at a friend's house celebrating the birthday of one of his kids. The plan for the party was to show up late, give the boy (a kid I've never met before) his give, make the rounds saying hello and that it was nice to meet everyone, then leave -except that's when the PS3 controllers came out. It went something like this:

Buddy: "Have you played Nazi Zombies yet?"
Me: "No, I've heard of it, but I haven't played that yet."
Buddy: "You want to try it?"
Me: "We should be going, I've got to get ready for work tomorrow."
Buddy, handing me a controller: "Come on, it'll be a quick game."
Me, willpower caving: "Maybe just one round. It's been a while since I've played though. I'll probably suck."
Buddy: "We'll play a warm up match then."

At this point I have a controller in my hand as does the buddy. You just can't have a good multiplayer match with just two, so my 14 year old daughter grabs the remaining controller. We start the game and I pretty much am instantly lost on the asylum level. This had the effect of keeping me out of harms way for the first couple of minutes while I get used to the controls. Unfortunately, that first few minutes of practice did me absolutely no good. I spent the next 5 minutes getting killed 11 times and taking out exactly no one else. I even fragged myself once (or twice). The next couple of games went no better. Even the 8 year old jumped in there and kicked my butt.

I could complain about not knowing the maps and being unfamiliar with the controls, but what good would that do? I used to be good at first person shooters, not great, but still pretty good. I used to be able to hold my own, but that was last year. Lesson learned and humbleness restored. Now I have to get back to gaming and have a rematch. That 8 year old won't stand a chance next time.
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