66) Just A Shot Away

As the conflict in the Middle East wages on, gamers are anticipating a new war from the past. With the video game industry drying out ideas from America's past, present, and future wars, there is still one pinnacle of horror mainstream developers have not yet canonized.

Vietnam.

Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops, dumps the player in America's misunderstood war, taking place in the dense jungles of Vietnam. There are shots of other levels on snowy mountains, presumed to be in Russia. We are in the Cold War era, after all.

Treyarch might not be doing it intentionally, but them seem to be triggering the video gamer generation's fascination with two unpopular and confounding wars. In the sixties, the youth were in full revolt with the old class, trying to end the seemingly pointless war in Vietnam. Today, youth protests no longer hold the weight they once did, if they exist at all. It's a important thing to understand.

The parallels are staggering. Not since The Forever War have the similarities been presented in such a popular and addicting manner. Both eras in American history were marked by internal strife of rights, dead-end wars, unpopular governments, and ailing economies. It was civil rights then, gay marriage now. Vietnam and Iraq. Nixon and Bush. Recession of 69' and Great Recession now.

Point is, both wars past and present serve to link together an experience current fathers and grandfathers can describe as a chilling echo of their youth. More importantly, this all helps shed more light on the veterans of an almost forgotten war. In Vietnam, soldiers went, fought, and came back. But there were no parades for them waiting at home. There were no instantaneous monuments. Heroes were forgotten.

If anything, Black Ops serves as a history lesson for those not old enough to understand the past, even if it's only a guidebook on weapons and machines of war. We get to see the differences and similarities that transcend leaders and borders. We get to see human nature in its glorious and destructive form:

The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter serves as a nice touch.

Perhaps the most special thing about Black Ops is its easter egg. You see, Treyarch's last game was Call of Duty: World at War, which depicted the Russian and Pacific Fronts of World War Two. The easter egg in that game was Nacht der Untoten, a game mode where you and three other friends play as Marines stuck inside a house being assaulted by Nazi zombies.

By popular demand, Treyarch reintroduced this in Black Ops, except this time you're fighting in the Pentagon. It's still just you and three friends, but you're not playing Marines anymore.

From left to right: Robert McNamara, John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon

I really couldn't think of a better way to insert a president into a video game. It's not crazy, it's just politics:

Alternate links here and here. Nice to see Nixon's as grouchy as ever.

Maybe that's the best solution for world wars. Stick the leaders in a room with zombies and have them fight as allies. You could make them friends pretty damn quickly. Plus, it's always nice to hear Kennedy shout: "Can you dig it?"

So get the game when it comes out November 9. I promise you won't be disappointed. And above all else, walk away from it knowing this simple rule:

War is always just a shot away.

62) Wolverines!

Damn it THQ. You and your creative minds stealing my video game ideas. Or maybe we're just both that good at predicting the future.

Their newest project in development is a game based on current political headlines. It's about the North Korean Army invading U.S. soil after things go bad. The title of this new game, Homefront, pretty much says it all. Check out the trailer:

As this article so clearly states (Alt video link in there too), the game is turning heads because it's based on today's political troubles. People often forget that North Korea likes to play with nukes. Or as my friends love to deflect: "If it ever happened, we'd nuke their asses."

And so hypotheticals are becoming eerily true. With the ailing Kin Jong-il standing down, it seems that his successor, Kim Jong-un, couldn't possibly make things worse. Or at the very least, he couldn't make things any better.

But as our fictional trailer illustrates, America is more than likely to tread a hard path in the future. Not to say that the U.S. is actually going to get invaded, but then again, North Korea has the capacity to copy American foreign policy: "Bullets solve problems."

If it happens, let's hope they don't crack open the nukes.

At the very least, this game is some delightful political commentary, if not just an excuse to switch public enemy number one from Nazis to Communists. Gamers are so tired of shooting Nazis in their favorite World War 2 video game that they've even explored the next best option: Nazi Zombies.

Thing is, I could actually see the United States starting this entire thing. I stick to my motto: "When the shit hits the fan, and the U.S. is involved, it suddenly becomes life, liberty, and the pursuit of crappiness."

Which brings me to my next question: How many wars will be fought in my lifetime? Scratch that. It's how many wars I will help fight in my lifetime.

And so if it starts with the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan and ends in North Korean control of the world, is that really such a bad thing?

Think about it: an entire world united in peace and prosperity, with the only real war coming from civil unrest, which could only help fuel improvement. Everyone's happy, and we advance as a society that got past that ugly thing called war. Problem is, you can't make a utopia without killing alot of people.

Sure they say that democracy is the best, but more than two hundred years of American policy has produced ALOT of wars, at a frequency, ferocity, and aimlessness the human race hasn't see since the Crusades.

And while the U.S. wastes away in the Middle East causing more and more deaths, we're still arguing over whether we should allow gays to serve openly. If I showed you a picture of three caskets and told you one of them was gay, could you tell me which one it is?

But back to our Korean point. With North Korea supposedly having free: housing, food rations, healthcare, and an educational system sporting a 99% literacy rate, some might argue that personal liberties are worth giving up for this society. Just don't ask too many questions if your neighbor suddenly disappears one day.

They also make some damn nice music:

At least the citizenry can act happy. I'm guessing if they believe it hard enough, it'll become true. I've seen enough of American democracy to want to know what it's like on the other side. Only for perspective, of course. Wouldn't want to be labeled any kind of traitor. That would be the worst.

But don't take my word for it, go watch The Vice Guide to North Korea. Once in a lifetime show:

And if there is indeed no heaven on earth, then we can all just wait to die. Sit back and watch the world destroy itself in a fallout shelter.

61) United

Remember when I told you about that speck of light in that new technological monument? You know, that Halo: Reach thingy?

Now that the game's been out for awhile, the monument has finally shut down (a personal Facebook message told me so), so let's take a look back on what was accomplished here.

Over the course of about a month, 118,422 people used their Facebook pages to post a contribution to the memorial. That's not counting the people who visited the site and didn't have an Facebook to contribute. (Rare these days, no?)

The dots came from all over the world, stretching from Milan to Osaka. Hell, they made a video about it:

In that earlier post, I talked about being united, having a sense of belonging. It all becomes much more satisfying once you know the numbers and statistics behind this little advertising campaign. People all over the world, many of whom will never meet each other, used the internet to share a single common passion. It's difficult to grasp that something like this, especially for a video game, could've happened just little over a decade ago.

That's what the internet revolution has done for us. If the new Facebook movie is any indication, it's that the internet plays a vital role in our lives. Instead of us mastering it, it now has the ability to master us.

It has the potential to bring us to tears, make us laugh, do stupid things, etc. Next to that, you've got the cultivation of a new online language as legal as ebonics, pictures of cats and their witty captions, or Youtube videos of morons hurting themselves.

I admit even I feel a bit internet incompetent sometimes. Coming from a seventeen-year old that spends 50% of his time on a computer, this might seem blasphemous. But then again, you don't see alot of seventeen year-olds these days convey information in readable grammar and spelling. (I try, anyway) Some of my peers would find this revulsive, just as their English teachers would cry tears over their texts.

Even a youngster like me can't help but feel a little slow when it comes to texting, Twittering, etc. I don't do texting or Twittering, but the fear exists in me that someday I might be forced to do it for some job or something.

Technology is indeed growing more generational by the day. Why a couple of days ago, I had a good laugh when my English teacher couldn't make his projector connect to his laptop. I sensed that he could feel our snickering eyes follow his every action, but when he finally got it to work, there was a loud and clear "Ha!" directed right back at us.

So there exists the possibility that when I'm old enough to be a sagacious teacher, I won't be able to keep up with technological trends. Who knows? By then paper books might be extinct, or they've perfected installing whole computers into a chip that can plug into your head.

At least I won't go it alone. As a generation, we can be united. Not necessarily to control the world with technology, but rather provide a voice of reason against technology controlling us.

For now, I can settle for being number 81,361 out of 118,422 little dots, all soldiers of an online generation.

56) Dots Of Light

Video games continue to break digital expectations. In a current world where moments of shock and awe are rarely associated with optimism, these mere distractions serve to give us some internal smiles.

The government could learn a thing or two from current video game marketing. In an America where competition is fueled by capitalism, companies have to be creative in selling their products. It's all about advertisement and building a brand. Except these days, it's gone online.

The best example I stumbled across today was the the Halo Reach Remembrance Memorial.

Allow me to explain.

Microsoft and Bungie are finally ending their multimillion dollar Halo franchise with a final game: Halo: Reach. Due on Sept. 14, the pre-orders pile up in the thousands, if not millions.

Reach is a prequel to the series, focusing on one of the most pivotal battles in the Halo universe and canon, aboard the planet, you guessed it: Reach.

The marketing campaign follows a slew of live action trailers, broadcast vigorously where the fanbase is the densest. This follows a legacy of ARG's left behind by the previous Halo games, most notably I Love Bees used for hyping up Halo 2.

For this new Halo: Reach, they've put up a memorial website. In the canon, The Battle of Reach has already occurred before all the other Halo titles, so it can be assumed that the protagonists of this game do not survive.

Even though the story takes place more than 500 years from now, it's a good tactic by Microsoft to put you as an observer of history, to witness these events as if you were a veteran of these battles. It makes sense, seeing as how any true Halo fan has played and witnessed all the other games and their depictions of war. This prologue is a fitting beginning to the end. (See what I did there?)

My excitement centers around the pre-release website for this game: Remember Reach.

The site is a simple view of a memorial of outlined figures, dedicated to the protagonists of the game. But here's the catch: the image is "built" by thousands of dots of light. In order to complete the memorial, fans and visitors to the website have to log onto their Facebook account, choose a unoccupied spot, and the huge robotic arm in the background moves to fill in the blank.

That's not all: the website takes your profile name and picture and puts it onto a sliding bar at the bottom. Proof that you helped build this marvel.

The website is updated live, with all chosen spots on a queue to wait for their moment of robotic arm glory. It's all recorded on camera, and you can see other names and their dots filled live. This behind the scenes video proves that there is an actual studio devoted to this 24/7 task. There's actually a real robotic arm that moves in front of a green screen.

These are the advances that draw your emotional obligation into a product. To feel that you can actually contribute to the canon directly provides a deeper and personal interpretation of the game and its universe. It's not just a simple: "See that memorial? I helped build that!" It's a deeper and subconscious link that makes it easier to lose yourself in the fiction.

With a story like humanity struggling to survive, it's not hard to sell Halo. In many aspects, it can even be interpreted as a metaphor for the United States and its war. Those deeply familiar with the Halo universe can tell you that the enemies are the same, alien and brutal, hell bent on fighting a religious crusade. The human defenders are a disillusioned group barely held together by a fractured government. Some are bent on peace, others vie for revenge. Human casualties become staggering.

There are stories of courage and valor, betrayal and heartbreak. Ethics are tested. People are killed. Heroes are born. Planets are glassed. Enemies are forced to team up. There's a paragraph from the book Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, that summarizes a major theme of the series, applicable to any modern war:

"It will give us time to think, plan, and come up with a better way to fight."

Parangosky whispered, "You want to trade lives for time."

Ackerson paused, carefully weighing his response, then said, "Yes ma'am. Isn't that the job of a soldier?" (47)

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. In the end, you don't have to be a fanboy of Halo or have to know the first thing about the canon to marvel at a Internet innovation via memorial. If for nothing else, participate for the sake of art. There is a story present everywhere, if you are willing to listen.

So go to the website and pick your own dot of light. My dot is tagged under my name, Derek Wong, on 8/31/2010, at 8:01 PM on coordinates x: 185.94 y: 68.23 z: -61.86.

Take a look at the thousands of other names and I dare you to tell me that video games can't be taken seriously. Because ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

A glimpse of the future.

51) Electronic Cocaine

When you grow up surrounded by labels of peer pressure, social norms, and signs of how to act, it's hard to deviate from a preset course of action. It takes control of what you wear, how you act, how you speak, and in the most general of descriptions, how to live your life.

One of these decisive factors for the current young is video games. You've heard of it, so it must be true. Capitalist America has groomed their electronic cow to produce the most milk out of the young, forcing them to convene on common grounds of "fun".

So it's a whole other argument when it come to video games that concerns me. Are teens playing games because they want to? Or because they're forced to?

'Forced' is a bit misleading here, but I'm referring to societal peer pressure. The internal instinct of capitalist America has triggered a subconscious desire to purchase. Not because the product is practical, but because it's the 'best' thing to do. There is a fine line between buying a game because you want to play it, and just because someone else has it.

This ties into the American education system, which, through no fault of its own, has encouraged kids to compete with each other. First it was grades, then it was material possessions, and now it's social lives. The system has played on our primal need to compete, turning it all into a covert war of buying and owning.

It's an addiction to compete. It's deadly in America, where whoever has the most, wins. Now that it's taken hold in the electronic world, kids are being exposed to the perils at infancy. It's a drug.

You hear stories and cases of people falling into internet and video game addiction, but you dissociate from them because you believe you believe their cases are extreme and unfathomable to you. But what if it's because you're just denying it from yourself? If it could happen to them, it could happen to you, right?

What I'm ultimately getting at here is that addictions cause you to lose personal integrity. This is virtual cocaine, which affects the mind and the body. The more you're connected to electronics, the harder it is to step away. You might think that this is obvious, but many people continue to set their measures of e-addiction higher and higher.

Who can blame them? In this modern America, it's no longer practical to be disconnected. Peoples' jobs are spent in front of a computer. Teenagers have to use a computer to do their assignments. More and more, it seems that our society is becoming more enslaved to machines rather than the other way around.

It may turn out in the long run that resisting electronic cocaine is a futile endeavor. After all, society is measured in change by infinite unpredictable factors that become increasingly unrecognizable as time passes.

I refuse to believe that we very few can change the flow of history. Yielding to society is much easier than resisting it, because everyday the fight for the little guy becomes harder. It forces us to do the next hardest thing: change ourselves.

Next time you come upon the choice between electronics and a walk in the park, decide what part of you holds more brevity. Are you willing to yield to society, or are you willing to change yourself?

These are the questions I continue to ask myself. The more I grow up in this electronic world, the more I realize the futility of resistance. My search for something more becomes increasingly futile in a society I refuse to accept. The vices of humanity call, and we must all submit.

Am I supposed to feel this way? Is it the new societal standard to feel pessimism? Or am I just growing up?

However:

Just because I take electronic cocaine doesn't mean I have to like it.

And so we merry few continue to fight the 'good' fight. We search for the truth. More importantly, we search for ourselves.

41) Summer of Dance

A summer starting YOMcast about the Gulf of Mexico's hazardous oil spill, with a link for a live video of the leaky pipe, the Obama administration's questionable response, first day of FIFA South Africa, the cliche surge of movies, and a hat tip to Mr. Sutherland and his first podcast.

Interlude: The Challenge

I got a majority of them too.

25) A First Step

Sorry about the sound quality, grammatical structure, and my stuttering.

English Final: Analyzation

Blogger and the overall idea of blogging has changed little about me, even though teachers would claim it is beneficial to my writing skills. My problem is that I don't see whatever improvements I'm supposed to have made. My doubt into this matter is a result of my constant writer's block.

I'm not accustomed to "freedom" writing in school. I doubt many others are either. There are very few writing assignments where you have full flexibility in what you wish to express. This is most likely due to fears of what you can write about in school and get away with. People love to bend this thin line of school ethics whenever they can.

This year, when I decided to take creative writing and required English, one of my main objectives was to defeat my adversary, Mr. Writer's Block. Now I have two classes that force me to do what I am not used to: exercise creative freedom. The number of assignments I have with such flexibility is on the rise. Right now, I'm juggling between blog posts and a few fictional stories I intend to finish.

Such creative independence is daunting. I am not accustomed to freedom over my actions. Most of the time, somebody controls or influences what I wear and eat. In my previous schooling, over numerous assignments, I've always had direction that forced me to work with guidelines.

This lack of dependency now has forced me into an ocean of topics that I hesitate to choose from. It's not because there's so little to work with, but because there is far too much. I don't like jumping into the ocean of creativity without a lifesaver. I often drown.

This is why most of my blog posts are drawn from random moments of inspiration. These are often influenced by others, which I still consider to be guidelines from fake teachers. They indicate what I should write about. These moments are seemingly random, and there is a subconscious response that reminds me I have a post due as an assignment. Sometimes I write these ideas down, and then disregard them later because I deem them stupid or impractical. The one idea I do keep, I write about.

This brings me to my second problem. When I don't discover moments of inspirational clarity, my mind enters a narrow alley. I just want to get the work done and disregard my creative voice. Some may be able to pull ideas out of nowhere on the spot, but the assignments I work on have a deadline. Although it is to be expected, you can't control creativity. I can't pop up with writing ideas at any given moment. My lemon of a brain doesn't like to be squeezed as a last ditch effort to complete homework, especially not the night before it's due.

When I started weekly blogging with YOM, I was enthusiastic about the idea. My first post was a prelude to the great endeavors I would undertake. As time wore on, my idea pool became exhausted, and I began writing ideas without efficiency and thoughtful prose. By the time I got here, my writing style was lacking in terms of language diversity and purpose. I was writing because I had to, not because I wanted to. This still holds true today.

Part of it is that I do some of the blog posts at school, or that I'm simply repulsed with being forced to make ideas out of thin air. My distaste for blogging has grown into an untimely chore rather than an outlet for my spirit. I'm still struggling with writer's block on my blog, along with the overall construction of this entire self-analyzation. The evidence is in my old blog, Shattered Infinity. Writer's block forced me to kill it with extreme self loathing.

When I do write, my current blog follows a trend. I generally just write about media and politics. Everything else falls into the miscellaneous category.

Media is an easy choice for me, as it is for many others on their blogs, obviously because of the impact it has on our lives. My obsession comes with people's interactions with media, and exactly how trends work. More specifically, this goes into the booming video game industry I am so very fond of. This is reflective on the video gamer in me.

Politics is the second fail safe option. It's tempting to write about, but must be done carefully to avoid confusion and criticism, even though both are expected in the final result. I fear the outcome enough to shy away from it.

The bright side on writing about political affairs is that you can relate to everyone on a personal level, as many have a political opinion. Also, you choose who to write about without getting easily stuck. There are many influences to draw from. Barrack Obama is clearly one of the major characters that come to mind. Following my mission statement, I have an inner craving to urge readers of my blog to think more about politics. After all, the government controls many aspects of your life.

Other times, I speculate on combining the two. I often visit www.gamepolitics.com, where I can get inspiration on the two topics that inspire me to write. I've started many hybrids of game politics posts, but they've turned video game posts every time. I hate politics more than I love video games.

I'm dissatisfied with restricting myself to these topics. I want to break the trend, but alas, Mr. Writer's Block has his gun to my head.

If there is anything I learned in the past few months, it's that I should broaden my writing horizons. I'm trying to overcome my fear of writing without being stuck. I've started to save unfinished blog posts and rants instead of deleting them. Looking over them might give me inspiration, and tell me what I shouldn't do when it comes to writing in general.

First, writer's block killed Shattered Infinity. Now it's forced me into a ditch with my current blog YOM. I feel I need to gain some revenge against Mr. Block.

Third time's a charm.

16) Innovation and Expectation

Above is a picture of Sony's hardware dedicated to their game Warhawk. Instead of forcing players to host games on their own consoles, players get to host their games on a select PS3 in the server cluster owned by Sony. Not only does this make the games faster and smoother, it is also a staggering example of innovation in technology use.

Of course, I bring this up to segway into discussing game industry innovations in the last few years. The past year showed progress in the form of new games:

Demon's Souls: A classic role playing game that brings the dungeons and dragons fantasy into the gaming world. This certainty isn't the first of its kind, nor will it be the last. But it introduces a new system of multiplayer interactivity not seen before.

First and foremost, you are online at all times. You see the "ghosts" of other players in your section of the game world. This is a real-time image of what that player is doing in the area you're in. This is vital, as players can help each other in unsuspecting ways.

Watching these other players provides insight into whether or not there are enemies nearby, what strategy to follow, or where certain items are. If a player dies, you can find their death spot to witness their last actions in the game world. This can clue you in on what to do and what not to do if you are intent on succeeding where they failed.

Players can even leave messages anywhere on the ground to be read by others, advice that can be followed or ignored. These notes can be rated by readers to provide a health boost to the author of the note.

Players can also team up in co-op with two others to take on a boss. And you can even invade others people's games, in which case you are no longer a ghost on their screen. You get to kill them and loot their items. As a matter of fact, one major boss fight in the game requires that you fight an invader. In such a case, you might either be the defender, or the boss.

Heavy Rain: A brand new unreleased epic that builds on the increasingly popular trend of experimental games. In Heavy Rain, you don't follow just one path. Rather, you are incorporated into a world where you must make free form decisions that can change game elements. No two play sessions will be the same.

You control characters in their natural and sensual environments, laced with events in which you must make quick button presses to perform actions. This includes everything from drawing a picture, to shaving, or a heavy fist fight.

What if you make a bad decision and your character dies? They are dead for the rest of the game. You must continue in the eyes of another protagonist.

Needless to say, there is still a long way to go before we delve into the realm of realism that games will one day achieve. As for now, we are seeing the starting steps to new and unprecedented ideas that can and will change our perspectives of entertainment and media.

So don't worry folks. Life is just a game....

13) I swear I wasn't high. Well, maybe a little.

When it comes to creating art, most tend to come up with something that hasn't done before. The premise is that you really want to avoid being called a plagiarizer.

Video games are no exception. I'm referring to the unique ones with an interesting premise, or lack thereof. For those who can pull it off, they not only have something terribly unique, but they also have a blockbuster hit on their hands.

It all means that when you sit down and try to ponder where these ideas came from, you might as well draw blanks. Some games really take the phrase "I couldn't make this up if I tried" to a new level. That's how creative you have to be when you want to sell to millions around the world.

But of course, you demand examples (SPOILER ALERTS):

Portal: Imagine yourself trapped in an abandoned testing facility built in 1986. Your only companion is an AI voice named GLaDOS that becomes increasingly homicidal as you progress through test areas of the facility. Also, you solve puzzles using a device that opens and closes instant teleportation portals.

Fallout 3: Taking place in an alternate timeline in which the electronic transistor was never invented, you fight for your life in a post apocalyptic Washington D.C., devastated by nuclear war. The entire setting is locked in a 1950s culture with a Cold War that lasts 332 years. Think of The Jetsons, but with atomic weapons.

Silent Hill (series): Protagonists are drawn into an abandoned town that is home to two alternate dimensions: an empty and deserted town with perhaps ten inhabitants, or a dark and hellish nightmare. All the games are depicted as a protagonist's fight against him/herself. Also, you fight humanoid headless teddy bears with giant claws (I'm not kidding).

Bioshock: An underwater dystopian/anti-utopian city of the 1960s where gene manipulation has caused people to make lighting/fire/water/ice from their hands. As the lower classes suffer, a civil war erupts into pure chaos. The citizens who modify their genes suffer extreme mental and physical degeneration. And they all want to kill you. Here's a speech from the beginning of the game:

I am Andrew Ryan and I am here to ask you a question:
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

No, says the man in Washington; it belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican; it belongs to God.
No, says the man in Moscow; it belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something
different. I chose the impossible. I chose...

Rapture.

— Andrew Ryan

That's my speech when I create a game that involves hyper ninja green space zombies of doom that fight humanity along with a religious alien empire hell bent on human extinction.

Wait, that's the Halo series.

Damn.

10) Flora and Aura

In trying to develop a case of how some video games can become popular over others, I have come across an example of a game that is an exception to the trends in the current electronic market. This missing piece, surprisingly, is what makes this game a unique masterpiece.

The missing piece I'm referring to is a story. Although there is little explanation for the setting of this game, it is open to whatever interpretation you want to slap on it.

I am talking about NEOTOKYO(http://www.neotokyohq.com/index.html). A Half-Life 2 modification with more than 4 years of development put into it. It tells the story of a future dystopian Tokyo, in which a shadow war is being fought in the back alleys of the capital of Japan. It depicts a conflict between the future Japanese GSDF against the NSF, a special counter-terrorism unit under the command of the prime minister.

So we have a setting. What we do not have is a centralized plot to what we are playing. And that's just it. We don't need a story. This future Japan we are playing in is filled with a unique visual style that encompasses everything, from billboards to cars.

I draw attention to this because I have decided to document some of the real life aspects that have been put into this game. The images seen that make you believe you are actually THERE. I'm referring to some of the advertisements. I've added their real life counterparts into the following images for comparison purposes:

(I'm guessing this last one was in the interest of not getting sued.)

My point is that some games can be better than others, even if they are missing an element of what would easily define them as a 'video game'. However, the developers of such a game must execute this style correctly and carefully.

If you have Steam, and a copy of Half-Life 2, I urge you to check this out. If not for the gameplay or graphics, then for the visual style not seen in recent years.

http://www.neotokyohq.com/index.html

8) I'm playing the movie. Literally.

Are video games a good narrative for telling a story? Most would tell you that it depends on the game. It would also depend on the characters, the plot, the action, etc. Well doesn't that sound like a movie you and your friends would see? Or how about a good book you would read?

Those who have played video games in the past year will know of the popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. As of May 2009, it has sold over 13 million copies. That's more than Halo 3.

So what makes this game so popular? Some would argue that the graphics, physics of the game engine, or the franchise's fame is what makes CoD4 the best of the best.

Want to know what I enjoyed most about the game? Why I kept replaying it?

As odd as it may sound, the story is what makes this game strong. CoD4 is one of the very few games that immerses you in the story. This happens thorough multiple perspectives in different levels. I'll try to explain what I mean to the best of my ability (SPOILER ALERT!):

The game starts you off as a member of the SAS on a routine Hollywood movie mission. As you get a feel for the controls, you infiltrate a tanker in the Bering Sea. You don't know what you're looking for until your teammate opens a cargo container. With radiation symbols all over it. Then the tanker gets attacked by MiGs. So starts your one minute dash to fumble with the newly learned controls to retrace your path (provided you can remember) off the ship before it sinks. Even as you watch the tanker go down from your helicopter, you feel relieved. Why? The character you're playing is a newbie on the team.

Your perspective switches to President Al-Fulani of an unnamed middle eastern country. You watch from his eyes as you are executed during a coup.

You then play as Sgt. Paul Jackson during an American invasion. You pursue Al-Asad, the coup leader, in his city. Just as you get whisked away on your helicopter, a nuclear weapon goes off, blacking you out. Even as you play through his last moments, you see and feel his pain as you arch up to look at the mushroom cloud before you die.

You explore the past history of your squad leader, Cpt. Price, as you control him in a flashback. A flashback that takes place in Prypiat, Ukraine, near the Chernobyl disaster site.

As you pursue Imran Zakhaev, the main antagonist, you fight into his missile base in the Russian Mountains. As you are about to open the gate, you see two missiles leaving the silos. As the game loads, you see the casualty projections: 43 million on the East Coast of the U.S. It's no longer business. You feel the character's anger. It becomes personal.

And even as you and your team are incapacitated in the final seconds of the game, Zakhaev arrives with his two bodyguards. When an explosion happens nearby, distracting them, you turn to Cpt. Price, clutching his wounds. He is about to die before he takes the pistol off his belt and slides it over to you. You take it, and kill Zakhaev in cold blood during a slo-mo sequence.

My point is that the story is what makes this game exciting and interesting. Executed correctly, any game can immerse you into the plot, and make you associate yourself with the characters. If you think that story was interesting, check out the trailer for the sequel, Modern Warfare 2, slated for release in Nov. 10, 2009. The trailer by itself is another story begging to be told:

I'm going to play CoD4 again. See you in awhile.

3) Time Traveling Dust Bunnies of Doom.

Although I would like to travel through time, the theories of what could or could not happen when you return are endless. Time paradoxes here and there shouldn't do much. Right?

The concept of time travel is not new. Theorists have played with the concept for centuries, but none have ever truly been known for actually traveling through time. That's where fiction comes in.

A good TV example I can think of is of the original series of Star Trek, where a few episodes depict Captain Kirk and Spock in an alternate time line. Their persona is different and nothing like the one we know. Ever since, time travel has become regular in the Star Trek universe.

Perhaps the wildest imagination I've seen devoted to alternate history is writer Harry Turtledove, whose works have made me a theorist of the implications of time travel. He has a multitude of series devoted entirely to "what if?" scenarios in which the timeline is dramatically changed because of one factor. I will briefly tell you about one of Turtledove's series: Timeline 191.

Timeline 191 is a fifteen novel series which follows the United States from the Civil War to the end of World War Two. There's only one catch: the southern Confederate States of America (CSA) gains independence at the end of the civil war. This timeline is interesting as it is agonizingly complex; some events are just impossible to imagine as feasible.

To give a quick summary of major deviations: The CSA is never dissolved. Lincoln never signs the Emanipation Proclamation. In WW1, US president Theodore Roosevelt joins the Central Powers against Woodrow Wilson of the CSA. In WW2, Allied powers of the US, Germany, Canada, fight against the Axis powers of the CSA, France, Britain, and Russia. At the series conclusion, the CSA loses and is absorbed into the Union, ending their 83 years of independence. Confused yet?

One last example I'd love to mention is the video game Metal Gear Solid 3, which is a prequel to the entire series. I decided to see what would happen if I killed off one of the vital characters of the series:

Maybe one day I'll create a time machine to change humanity. Or something like that.

2) No I don't have a girlfriend.

With the recent passing event of PAX (Penny Arcade Expo), it seems relevant to talk about the role of video games in our society. PAX is one of the few examples of how gaming has influenced most of our lives. Gamers who follow gaming closely will know what I am talking about when I say things like E3, Sony Entertainment North America, Nintendo, Microsoft, etc.

What few seem to realize is how big gaming is in the general media. It makes its appearances here and there in the form of cameos in movies, tv shows, and, commercials. The recent bloom of Wii related items have spurred the market in telling people exercise in your living room will keep you from being fat. The unknown fact is that so many Wii's are bought everyday, but less than half of them are actually used.

Of course we like video gaming for a reason. It distracts us from the realities of life by replacing it with an alternate one, one where your actions have no moral or physical repercussions. As an avid gamer myself, I can tell you that gaming simply helps me relax in times of great duress. There is something to be said for going home to crawl into your room. Inside said room in the world of video games you can be anyone and anything you want to be.

There are of course, the parents who say that video games are violent, they inspire crimes (mentioned in my previous post), and they are making our new generation conscious soldiers. There have even been political scandals involved (google sex-box scandal).

The future of gaming? These days there are 3D goggles that work with your computer to create a real live world image. Frankly it seems that technology will one day advance to the point of no return, blending video games with reality. When we can't distinguish between the two (for some it has already happened), I'm going to sit back and read a good book.

And if we're living in The Matrix, I'll just keep laughing.