NextGen Gaming

2008.04.08

I likes me shooting games, free roamers, the ones you can blow stuff up in, all that violent jazz. If you can clearly draw a line between the good guys and the guys you can shoot, I'll enjoy it. Your GTA, Mercenaries, Killzone... it's all good.

Of course, I also have a 1 years walking around the house who'll soon have a little brother, and they'll be wanting in on the killing frenzies also. While I'd sit them down in front of a bloody shoot-em-up before I sit them down in front of Hannah Montana any day, it's just something to think about when a parent moves to a new gaming system.

Enter the Wii

PS2 games have been trickling in lately, and as out of touch I am with games, it's getting harder and harder to find good stuff out there. So I was surprised when a geek at Blockbuster last September told me Wii's were becoming more available. We'd played with it briefly at a store demo, and Anna and I got that initial jolt from the full motion control swinging the virtual golf club. We figured, "the sh*t's neat, kiddy, and fun for all ages, right?" Hey, I was a Nintendo guy in the beginning - why not go back to the basics?

So, we swung by a local Best Buy, and wandered into the computer area to mess with the sales guys like clueless impulse shoppers. "You're saying I need a quad-processor to run Windows Vista? Well, that sounds reasonable... do you sell extended protection plans also? Great!!! I'll take none, you zipperhead!"

Then we wandered over to the games area, and tasked a pubescent sales associate with a quest to find Wii's in the back room. It took three tries, but he finally found a box of three systems, pulled out one, and we left the store with our very own Wii.

Right off the bat, I'll tell you now, playing the Sports game that comes with the Wii is fun as hell. We played that for hours with friends and family. The golf is actually fun, tennis is challenging, and the bowling is a blast.

It eventually occurred to me that after four weeks of playing with it, the Sports game was the only game I really like on the system. I'd tried a few other games, and it just seemed we always came back to bowling. By then, my brother was convinced it was worth buying, but apparently in the throes of the holiday season, folks we swooping Wii's up like free beer. All he could find was Wal-Marts gouger special, $450 for the system (normally $250) plus a bunch of other needless crap. So, instead of going that route, I gave him my Wii as a birthday / Christmas gift. It was for the best - I was beginning to enjoy golf a little too much.

The Green X

The following months, I still found that itch to shoot stuff (virtually), and the games for PS2 were getting stale. I'd realized by then that going the kiddy route was a mistake for me - I wanted well-defined, pixelated guns, not bobble headed Mii's running bases or hitting golf balls. With the PS2 in hand and a curiosity for all the shooters available on the XBOX side of the fence, the XBOX 360 became more interesting.

True to my record, I bought an XBOX 360 only two years after it's release and just shortly after the HD DVD format was pronounced dead. I didn't care about that crap - I have no interest in re-buying movies just to see Mel Gibson's nose hairs.

Oddly enough, I was not impressed with Halo. Even I thought it was weird I don't care for Halo. I mean, I like Red vs. Blue, I like the commercials, I like shooting aliens - what gives? I got Gears of War and again, not particularly impressed. Big, beefy guys with chainsaw guns, lots of things to shoot, lots of blood... but there just wasn't a spark. Again, weird.

That Call of Duty 4 is alright, but a little chaotic. You got one guy yelling at you to shoot something, and 40 Saudi's unloading AK's in your direction. It makes me wonder whatever happened to UN sanctions or pretentious diplomacy.

I did try the online experience with Halo 3. My friend Joe and I went online to shoot it out with some other players, and immediately I heard their voices. "Hello?" I guess it was time to be social, so I hooked up my headset and chatted back. Then the adolescent piped in - the pimpled gamer living on these games started to sing his rendition of some Faith No More song in a Tiny Tim voice. No doubt, it was the same boy that was slaughtering Joe and myself. Respawn, walk outside, he hops and shoots, *arrgh*, respawn and repeat. The singing, hopping boy made me realize talking only made me want to choke him more, so I turned that feature off quickly. A few games later, I gave up and being fodder and left Tiny Tim to practice on other newbies.

Video games in the 30's

On the one hand, I feel it's kinda immature to still play video games going into my 30's, but on the other hand, I can tell my tastes are changing.

I've recently come across a bunch of other guys in their 30's who still like video games. It seems there's a pattern as you get older - you get into more sports and war games, and less into the other more fantasy-type games. It seems I'm following suit in this part - I remember wasting dozens of hours on stupid, miscellaneous Jap-Anime RPGs to fight the same villian archetypes. Now I just want to hit power, shoot stuff, and hit power again.

So, I guess instead of video games being an anomaly of our generation, it's just become a repacement for other things we've done in the past.  Instead of beer and watching the Cubs, it's now beer and playing the Cubs with an 8-button controller (and finding out  who won the real game later on SportsCenter).

I guess it's not a bad trade off.

 -GK