No Country For Young Men

(click above picture to enlarge)

When I watch videos for M-rated games, I'm usually anywhere between a ripe 35 to a moldy 99 years of age. It's just quicker that way when swiftly clicking and dragging through year of birth boxes. But very seldom, either due to giddy eagerness for the content to come or lackadaisical motor skills, I can be as young as 1-year-old. Then the door to procedurally-generated goodness, one-liner-spewing heroes, and high-dynamic range titty physics is slammed in front of my face and locked forever. Well... at least until I close the tab and re-open it. Inconvenience aside, I think that the most obscene and objectionable thing about M-rated game videos is these age-verification legal hurdles and how they treat EVERYONE like an imbecile. Dare I say, it's the principle of it that most pisses me off.

So at the age of 17, when a boy finally sheds his awkward, ill-fitting pre-pubescent skin and accepts the lush chest-mane of manhood and is only then morally, intellectually, and ethically qualified enough to handle mature content, on this day of his 17th birthday, only then can he also comprehend… simple arithmetic. Really, is basic addition a skill only people that are 17 years of age have somehow acquired, like some ticking genetic alarm clock that suddenly awakes and fires up a region of the brain formerly dormant and inaccessible? It doesn’t take a 17-year-old to figure out what the minimum year is that someone would have to be born on to make them 17 and legally able to watch M-rated game videos. Give the children more credit than that.

I understand that these questions are pretty futile and I’m fairly certain that no person in their right mind who controls the access of mature game materials to minors–well, almost sure–actually thinks that this birthday shit prevents youngins from watching morally-objectionable content. It’s more of an uneasy truce, just one big amalgam of legal formalities hewn into a complaint-deflecting shield these sites use to cover their asses with. But if it’s that fucking easy to cheat the system and bypass this bureaucratic bullshit in the first place, then what is the purpose of this worthless safeguard, this idiotic internet doorman who takes your word that you live in the building without even the slightest need for deceit and guile? I’m probably giving them (the Patriots of M-rated game videos) too many ideas by doing this, but above is a concept design I made for what information all game video viewers should be assaulted with, which would actually solve this amoral, rampant pandemic of underage viewings.

I guess the question I'm really striving to posit has nothing to do with these sites themselves. It's the enraged parents, anti-videogame groups, politicians, and other assorted moral crusaders who have had their fragile little sensibilities untimely rocked, and subsequently call for lightning bolts of legislation to be thrown wildly. This legislation is what builds senseless, minuscule speed bumps like age-locked videos. After making blow after blow of legal action to the gaming industry, with swing after swing of their swords, that resemble worn and inkless pens, these inane militants who blindly see themselves as proud crusaders, don't ever seem to slow their obstinate resistance or lay down their arms of defamation and listen to reason. Instead, they choose to focus chiefly on a problem equivalent to a campfire sparking and roaring a little too wildly, possibly hot enough to engulf a marshmallow prematurely, while they neglect to notice that the entire forest surrounding them is ablaze. There are more dire and pressing things we should be focusing on than regulating the flow of videos that contain digital guns in war games while real guns are being fired for a purposeless war. But they've convinced themselves that the problem is severe enough to warrant sanction.

The videogame industry seems to bear the brunt of the governmental scorn these days, like well-intending illegal aliens who just recently hopped the border. But the face of absurd content regulations in entertainment is omnipresent. In some trailers and TV spots for the upcoming comedy Pineapple Express, one sequence in which James Franco is erratically driving a police car, the blood splattered across the windshield has been digitally died black, possibly to resemble oil. Apparently, only when you have reached the age of 17 are you mature enough to be told that the precious crimson liquid that courses through your veins is blood. Until then it's only raspberry jelly, or ketchup, depending on the tenets and nurturing styles of the parent. If this isn't absurd enough already, the substance covering the windshield in the finished film isn't even blood, it's cherry Slushee viscera. All mediums seem to be plagued with this legislative skewering on the part of dominant powers that don't even take the time to understand, watch the works they are castrating, or experience them in their intended entirety.

Just because some people liken their children to impressionable animals, small malleable vessels that adopt every idea they hear and take even the most neutral of images as some symbolic manifestation of evil, why does everyone else need to be held to that standard as well?

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To Eden or not to Eden: Drinkin’ a 40 and gettin' my PixelCrunk on

It was not but four and a half minutes after arriving home from my vacation with my family that I pushed over my girlfriend, stepped on the dog and ordered my man servant to load up the demo of the third chapter of the PixelJunk trilogy Special Edition. As the ambient acid induced music began to emerge from the depths of the Cross Media Bar (no I will not spell cross with an X that is just fucking stupid) I knew that, in the words of Robert Nesta Marley, every little thing was definitely going to be alright.

As the luxurious pink tower rose from the soil of Eden, I knew I was in love. Like many artsy gaming endeavors, the controls did not come naturally, but when I finally settled down with the single button play mechanics I was making Radd Spencer look like my bitch. I leapt up blossoming plants like a toad on methamphetamines and swung like Spiderman. I did not even mind the time management system which involved picking up these amoeba-looking blobs to increase my constantly depleting oscillator bar (if it runs out you fail the level). It just gave me the opportunity to swing more. After gathering my third Spectra, I decided to give co-op a try.

I pulled my sixaxis controller from the cobwebs in the corner of my basement and handed it over to my brother who had yet to dabble in the bliss of the PixCrunk. I explained to him the controls and gave him a bit of time to become one with the Eden. After the downtime he seemed comfortable so I began feverishly making my way to the heavens. In a matter of moments, my brother was hanging off the bottom of the screen, a timer appeared over his head and he ceased to be. I did not fret for long, for in a matter of seconds he appeared next to me. After the second time this had occurred I realized that his demise had punished the both of us. All of the pollen that was in the surrounding seeds was reduced to half that amount. This turned that game into a Merry-Go-Round simulator in which we both spun around in circles for a couple of minutes recuperating our losses. I also could not figure out which person the camera was locked on to. At one point, my brother and I coincidentally jumped for the same seed. He got there a split second sooner making me pass though the seed and plummet to my death. This same thing happen to my brother on another occasion and the screen decided to follow him as well. Apparently using random screen/character following technology, the camera followed either me or my brother and other was killed so we lost our high ground. So, I slowed my pace in order to keep my brother on the screen and began to feel what I call Sonic Syndrome.

As you may recall, the old Sonic the Hedgehog games had this feature called one and a half player, where one person had a lot of fun while the other put all of his or her efforts into catching up. Now this worked wonderfully if it was your 3-year-old little brother who wanted to play because he got the illusion of participation. If you wanted to play with someone who actually enjoyed and had the ability to play games, you had to play slower and you both got to play Sonic the Hedgehog: Babysitters Club Edition. In the Babysitters Club Edition, you both agreed to keep it so both of you are on the screen most of the time for the sake of fun. But it wasn’t fun, it was the opposite of fun, you both wanted to be playing as Sonic, but one of you fucks had to be Tails and ruin the game. And now we arrive back in 2008 with PixelJunk Eden: Babysitters Club Reunion Special.

Now this doesn’t make me love this game any less, it just is a mode that is utterly impossible to use, unless you have two people with exactly the same skill and play style. From what I have noticed, all of my friends play this game completely differently, making co-op seem relatively useless. Notice I have yet to bring up that there is three-player cooperative play. This is because I am pretty sure this mode is impossible. I just feel that they could have had some kind of online co-op where each player was followed on their own television set, but since this technology was not in PixelJunk Monsters, I doubt it is in Eden. I just wish co-op was more of a primary focus of the game rather than an afterthought. I personally thought the co-op was so well-suited for Monsters that the single player seems pointless.

With all the verbal defecation aside, I still believe that this game is a shining star of originality and fun in a gray/brown world where space marines thrive and morons complain about adding color and life to certain Satan-influenced PC titles. Next week will be a great moment for gaming and a terrible moment for my mother who will be consistently cleaning my gleefully soiled under garments. Continue?

The Curdled Milk of Human Kindness

(click the above panel to make it all biglike)

The gradual perversion and mutation of Folding@home didn't take very long for me. At first I thought it was a remarkable way a little son of a bitch like me could make a big difference. It didn't require doing anything unreasonable like leaving my home, talking to people, or donating my "locks of love" (if love can be construed as oil and the carcasses of dead, disillusioned horse flies that thought my curly dome was a nest). But no, it didn't require doing anything more than pressing a series of buttons, and it was a virtuous undertaking I was heroically prepared to commit myself wholeheartedly to. Five minutes into my first work unit, the altruistic charm of making a difference rapidly shrunk and was replaced instead by a malignant, festering selfishness that grew like a tumor underneath a Soviet x-ray machine. Not quite as bad as the situation depicted in the panel up above, but still pretty bad.

It was harmless enough at first. Folding became a delightful visualizer for me. With every tender nudge of the analog stick, I was endlessly entertained by the seizurelike dances of strange molecules and the cute sound that accompanied it (for those who haven't experienced this, it sounds like an ocean of lemonade–or any beverage of your choosing really– where millions of ice cubes clink and collide). I also spent hours looking at the world map, scouring continents for small, isolated beacons which represented fellow folders. These miniature lighthouses really told you a lot about the economic standing of a country (i.e. the few beacons in Africa were located in the southern regions). They also prompted questions as much as they provided answers, like who is that lonely dot out in the middle of the ocean? Is it some outlaw living on a houseboat along the boundaries of international waters? Is it L. Ron Hubbard? Perhaps it's some mysterious electrical anomaly emanating from the sunken city of Atlantis, teasing us with her existence and her hidden majesty. But this playful flirtation with Folding soon became more of an abusive raping.

The sinister enterprise began when Ben noticed the number of work units I had accumulated. His voice held the most subtle and indifferent tone of awe, more a distant cousin of awe really. It was a relative of awe nonetheless and that was more than enough of a spark to light this cataclysmic powder keg. Before long, I went to his house and noticed that he had surpassed me in the war on cancer. This was unacceptable. My polyp-pounding high score of 10 work units was going to be trounced by this newcomer, this mere protein private? Not on my watch. So, the unspoken duel of wits, work units, and energy consumption commenced. It seems so ridiculous to think of now, but it made perfect sense at the time. We felt a sense of accomplishment not from the bigger picture, the knowledge that our dedicated participation was potentially of some medical significance, our satisfaction came from a series of numbers, which were earned by not using our brand new PlayStation 3s to play games. We effectively got stronger for our PS3s being weaker, reduced to a dormant, vegetative coma of perpetual folding and overstressed cooling fans. If purgatory does exist, it's most likely being a cooling fan in my PS3 for the duration of this folding feud.

The contentious bout reached its apex when a new unexpected contender entered. Ben and I noticed that beneath our friend Reid's PSN ID, it constantly stated, day or night, that he was folding. Naturally we had to investigate this potential threat. We invited ourselves over his house under the artificial pretense of wanting to "hang out", "watch a movie", maybe "drink a few beers", "angrily drunk dial some old flames of ours" and tell each other mournfully that "you were never there for me", but for all intents and purposes this was a recon mission. What we discovered destroyed us. Reid's number of work units far surpassed ours. For a time, an alliance was forged between Ben and I to tackle this greater foe. In the face of defeat, we even contemplated enacting a scorched-earth policy to attain victory; erasing Reid's hard drive and possibly the cure for cancer buried deep within it. Either out of a startling moment of clarity or succumbing to laziness and apathy, the blood feud was abandoned.

After the blinding haze of debilitating anger and dismay had subsided, it wasn't very difficult to pinpoint the origins of these absurd emotions. The series of numbers that constituted my completed work units wasn't unlike other numbers that wrapped me in a similar fervor in the past. Frags, headshots, flags captured, weasel pelts collected, fake currency amassed are examples of just a few dominant game mechanics–namely defining proficiency and aptitude in terms of numerical value–that are tried and true methods of getting people invested in something. One's dedication, skill, and involvement with a game is being quantified. You can't even play a leisurely song in Rock Band without receiving a post-song analysis of completion percentages and subtly condemning adjectives (I'm looking at you, "Spirited Survivor") that declare who was the weakest rhythmic key-pusher and who was the strongest. At least provide an option to turn it off if one so chooses. I also don't think that having a tense band meeting after someone misses an ending bonus is particularly enjoyable or team-building, and yes, this has happened to me. Games have always been about competition (competing with yourself, against the rigid confines of the game, or someone else). Only fairly recently have some games proved otherwise, or at least made competition optional or subtle. But largely, it seems that many of us have been tempered in the vengeful flames of kill counts and post-mortem teabaggings.

If there is a clear, shallow, immediately visible indicator of how good one is at something or how much of it they do, no matter how mundane the task, and bragging rights are involved (qualities that can be debated as to how useful they really are in the first place), then controllers will be quickly converted into triggers, people will no doubt be gettin' the C.R.E.A.M. (dolla, dolla bills ya'll), and even a noble, philanthropic venture such as Folding can be perverted into a pride-extinguishing weapon, all in the timeless tradition of competition. I can't argue that this isn't an effective tool to temporarily posses someone into doing something though. Maybe that's the secret recipe behind all successful charities. There are some people who genuinely want to make a difference, and then the majority of other people who take some egocentric stake in it, like people who want to prove their concern for a cause and their dedication by running X number of miles for it. Or the extremely wealthy (who may or may not have made their fortune by climbing on the tired backs of the desperate, the exploited, and the destitute) who dedicate wings to hospitals provided that their name is in clear view on a shining plaque and a statue of them giving off a carefully detailed smile of generosity is nearby. And for that matter, the same could be said for city kids who pride themselves on being so worldly, cultured, understanding, and so kindhearted. They rally around water fountains in parks, take out sidewalk chalk and their soapboxes, and loudly, aggressively preach to the choir about the war in Darfur. But mostly, all they really do is boast about their "sympathy" for the ongoing injustice by inviting you to Facebook groups, changing their status to "so-and-so is perpetually weeping over Darfur )-; Hit up the cell tonight if you want to go club hopping (-: ", or wearing their fashion-conscious 'Save Darfur' shirts. A lesser evil for the greater good I suppose.

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The Devastating Power of Complaint Mail

It seems that the only seething pain I endure in my placid, mundane existence is brought on by minute inconveniences with user interfaces. I've instigated my fair share of hate-filled vendettas, completely abused "contact us" links, and even waged a Hundred Years' War (actually two, but who's counting?) against Netflix for a while, but recently I encountered an impasse with the PS3 which triggered a thermonuclear eruption of incensed rhetoric and gratuitous amounts of spellcheck squiggles. Many squares on my keyboard were pushed and bludgeoned, and many said squares now only let out a squeaking whimper in an attempt to communicate the misery that befell them on that fateful day. What follows is my email to Sony. Reader discretion is advised.

"First, I would just like to say that whoever designed the arduous, unforgiving security parameters for the PS3's account management–which is on-par with getting into the Pentagon and comparable to being thrown into a small box of a room, waking up later with amnesia and finding that all doors are locked and you don't have the key to ANY of them–should have their job title changed to "Sadistic Customer Torturer and Agitator".
I have been a loyal Playstation customer since the PSOne. Foolishly, I bought a PS3 at launch and since has done a great job fulfilling it's one use as being a handy dust collector and gauge for how filthy my media stand had become. Only recently the slow, lethargic, leisurely trickle of decent content that has dripped out of the proverbial teat of the Playstation has motivated me to brush off that upper mantle of dust from the false monolith and activate it once again. Since the eons that have passed while my DustStation 3 sat idly, I found Jesus, took up origami, broke up with Jesus, lost 5 pounds, gained 15 pounds, finished my sophomore year of college, and got a new credit card. So, naturally I had to change that billing information to recognize the new credit card number. Then, I received my first friendly "welcome back" from my old false future gaming prophet of a friend: 'Enter your account password'. Well, I didn't have any clue what that password was and after 20 minutes of being told my guesses were invalid, I gave up. You would think that since the PS3 has a built-in eth browser that someone would have had the idea to put the helpful feature, now internet membership mainstay, of the 'Forgot Your Password?' link below so one could take care of all this on their PS3. But alas, there was no link, there was no helpful tip, there was in fact NOTHING I could do without my password. There was nothing to prove that this was in fact me, no personal questions regarding my first pet, my first love, my first PSN game I regret spending money on, even a blood test would have been welcome.
I looked at your site's troubleshooting page and the only recourse I was given was to completely erase all of my settings, which after this debacle, I don't feel comfortable doing and finding out later that other things were killed in the rebirth because your company seems to take sick pleasure in seeing users go into convulsions of anger and frustration for no particular reason. I'M TRYING TO GIVE YOU GUYS MONEY!! I'M TRYING TO BUY THINGS ON YOUR STORE!! Do you really think it should be that difficult of a process to rob us further, or is it just the insult to injury you're trying to preserve? Instead of investing time, money, effort, and laziness into finishing Home sometime in my lifetime or actually implementing a truly next-gen and noble 15% of your promised Network features, why don't you turn your gaze to simple annoyances like these that bar the customer from taking advantage of ANY money-making features you have worked so tirelessly on implementing (and usually spend even more time "refining" and "updating" because their original form was ghastly).
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT MY PASSWORD IS without erasing my system's already troubled, plagued memory and do it sometime before the PS9 comes out. Paying for some of my Lipitor after this experience would also be nice, but I know the customer is only marginally, occasionally right to this company and a suggested troubleshoot to this stress-induced health problem would probably be to submit to a heart attack and then restart."

This digital diatribe was ignored outright by the good cybernetic organisms at Sony and a default response was issued promptly. In all fairness, the very features I was condemning them for not having are in the XMB, they're just not in the Account Management screen where one would think they would be. I still maintain that the process is a little too difficult and obscure and finding the solution on the help pages is just as difficult. If nothing else, this should serve as a testament to the blind and baseless anger we technophiles are sometimes prone to generating. God bless it and may we never truly know where it comes from. Continue?