A Stitch in Haste

"The words 'recreation' and 'enjoy' have no meaning to my programming..."
--Star Trek: The Motion Picture

A Wired commentator discloses his alternative lifestyle:

Let us praise the joys of double-wielding a pair of Uzis with unlimited ammo; let us delight in the gorgeous fractal carnage of a rocket launcher as it slams into your target. Let us talk openly about how just totally awesome it is to grab a fully loaded railgun in Quake 4 and wade into a mass of gibbering Strogg aliens and kill and kill and kill again, until there are guts on, like, the ceiling.
...
This is a subject that huge numbers of gamers feel strongly about, but are terrified of saying out loud. After all, we now live in an age where the pop-culture mainstream has decided that games are fascinating — but only the "complex," socially nuanced ones. Everyone moons over Will Wright's emotionally sophisticated Sims, and his impending, world-modeling Spore. Critics gush over the social valences of life inside World of Warcraft, or the cinematic scope of the Final Fantasy series, or the massive forking narratives of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

But when it comes to shooters — the Cro-Magnon sector of the gaming world? Everyone recoils. If only gamers would grow up, sigh the pundits, these infantile titles would finally vanish, and gaming would finally be respectable.

I concur fully. It's been four months since I ended my twenty-year video gaming hiatus by purchasing an Xbox 360 and I have to tell you, destruction is fun (though unlike the columnist I hate the railgun — too clumsy — and vastly prefer the rocket launcher and dark matter gun when slaughtering Strogg from a distance).

In any case, here are my reviews of the Xbox 360 games I've played thus far:

Five Stars — Buy Now and Buy New
--Quake 4: As addictive as crack; I've destroyed the Nexus at private, corporal and lieutenant levels and will soon embark as a "general."

--Call of Duty 2: Upside = killing Fascists. Downside = doing so as a Communist. I'm about half-way through the war, on easiest setting.

Four Stars — Buy Used on Ebay
--Ridge Racer 6: My first driving game since Spy Hunter in college. Fun and G-rated; some say it's not the best racing game. I have no basis for comparison. The "World Explorer" races get really hard about halfway through the map — very frustrating.

Three Stars — Borrow a Copy
--Perfect Dark Zero: Microsoft builds a mission-style shooting game. Enough said. Final mission is insurmountable (for me at least) even at beginner level. And the hero is actually a heroine — ick!

Two Stars — Opportunity Cost is Too Great
--Gun: Hard to get excited about shooting a rifle in the Wild West when you've been shooting your dark matter gun on Planet Stroggos.

One Star — WTF?
--Kameo: A fairy-pixie traveling through a wondrous fantasy-land. Sorry, but I'm not gay enough for that. Chucked it after 20 minutes.

What games do you play now or did you play in your youth?

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My single biggest disappointment with the Xbox 360 has been the online gaming. I admit it, I totally suck at it. "Suck" isn't even an adequate word — "hypersuck" is closer to accurate. I can't even begin to compete with these kids on any game I try to play online. (And boy do they have foul mouths!) The difference between single-player and multi-player gaming is like the difference between figure skating and ice hockey. Oh well, I guess my descent into isolated sociopathy will progress undeterred.