Does anybody else remember Tilt? When I was a wee lad I used to go to the mall with my mom. She would toddle off to Nordstrom and I would hightail it to the Tilt with all of the couch money that I could find. The arcade franchise is not as important as the time that we spent inside and the quality of the games. It doesn’t matter if you played at Tilt or Sega City or your local pizza shop. What matters are the games and the competition.

I loved Samurai Showdown with an intense passion. Other kids would hone their skill at Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat. I found those game plebeian and uncouth. Samurai Showdown was artistic, it required timing and grace and with one character you got a dog sidekick!

But there are often times when camaraderie surfaces over competition. Sometimes you and your new found mall friends want to team up and whup some ass together… as brothers. For these times I chose Golden Axe! How can you not love a game with a dwarf hero named Gilius Thunderhead! Awesome!! Or if you are not in the mood to play as a hulking manchild in speedos try Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the arcade game. We always used to fight over who could be Michelangelo, clearly the most partying turtle. And the final alternative for even more fun is The Simpsons arcade game. A little bit lower on the playability side but you can play as Marge and whomp suckers with a vacuum cleaner.

One of the unique arcade experiences is using a lightgun. Youngsters raised on consoles like the PSX and N64 largely missed the lightgun era. And nowadays lightguns will not work on fancy plasma and LCD tvs. That was the great part about going to the arcade, it was all there, hooked up, running and ready for our money. Some games were so lame that you had to play them: Revolution X, rescue Aerosmith from terrorists with a gun that shoots CDs!! give me a break. But some were totally awesome. Lethal Enforcers was the first light gun game that I ever played and it was amazing. Then I got my sweaty mits on Time Crisis. OOOoh Time Crisis. I would rather play Time Crisis than attend my son’s first soccer game.. if I had a son. That game was amazing.

So next time you stroll past an arcade and there is change in you pocket…

m4w - Night Raid

Me a level 25 Dwarf hunter with full red beard you level 45 Tauren druid wearing Warlord’s Dragonhide Epaulets. I saw you on teh frozen plane while hunting to level up. You stole my heart but then I was killed. Wanted to know if you would meet up for root beer and pizza at Shakey’s in Camden NJ? Holla!

g4h (gnome for human)

Sup! I’m a new gnome mage, level 18 hanging out in Thalanar. Kinda lonely here looking for not to serious thing with a human… you know hang out, raid orc encampments, get loot! No fatties.

wfm - Undead and awkward

Hi, This is an apology for killing you. We were hanging for a little while in the PVP server and you called me fat, I killed you. Just wanted to say sorry and call me! 212-432-xxxx

w4m - Orc loves Gnome

Don’t say it’s not meant to be. I love you. Ever since i gazed into your avatar’s eyes in the cold snow of Winterspring I knew you were the one. I am a leatherworker by trade… you know what that means!!!11!! Come live in my village and we can go on raids together, spend long days leveling together and I can hold your tiny hand in my massive ham fist. I <3 U tiny gnome!

m4w - Humans (all others ewww)

Conventional male Paladin seeking female counterpart. I am on the lookout for a female partner to engage in standard relationship activities. My duties: being strong, hunting, fighting orcs and whatnot, being a man! Your duties: Cleaning armor, being very tall and good looking, shopping, waiting to be rescued etc…

I assume that many lovely ladies will apply for this prestigious position so line up and I will interview you all personally. If my connection lags it is because my mom won’t shell out for a cable modem and I am stuck on DSL… or I spilled Shasta all over the keyboard again.

So I have been debating the best use of my money. As a primary PC guy I have not been pulled into the Next Gen craziness. My time has been spent drooling over my roommate’s ability to play F.E.A.R. on his Macbook Pro in the living room while we watch The Simpsons on Tivo, sometimes grabbing cold ones from our dedicated living room beer fridge. Yes I know you are all marveling at the wondrous modern lifestyle that we lead. So as I am sitting there engaged in ultimate sloth a PS3 commercial comes on. I steady my Tivo hand and resist fast forwarding through the commercials. I start to think, sure would be rad to own a PS3. But then I start to wonder what else I could get my grubby little paws on for 700 clams.

So here is the list:

1. A full set of electric drums (Rawk!)

2. 80 5oz. mail order Fillet Mignons

3. 3 Intelligent robot vacuums

4. 14 corduroy sphere chairs in lime green

5. A very nice top hat

6. A life size robotic pony (Argahhh it’s horrible)

7. A baseball that may or may not have been autographed by Mickey Mantle

8. Rare Hummel figurine: The Overzealous Xylophonist

9. Custom blingged out Ipod Video

10. 14 box sets of the Star Wars Trilogy

11. A very attractive rug

12. A really great resume

13. A Tropical Aqua Tower Aquarium Pentagon

14. His and hers Vurtego pogo sticks

15. 1/3 of a pair of custom Nike Dunks

I was looking at the Nintendo Wii at the local game store and I couldn’t help but come up with a few possible issues of retardedness that must happen on a day to day basis while playing the system. Thankfully there are plenty of video posts on the old internet to confirm my suspicions.
1. You can be an idiot and smash your hand into something while flailing about with the Wii controller. As exemplified here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLps-FTlZ5E

2. You can Trick yourself into thinking that you are working out. By the way you are not. As seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vK8j0jnZfo

3. You can get your kids involved and confirm that children have no hand eye coordination. As we see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wczw4PlKuE

American gamers love FPS games. They are seen on almost all platforms. You can play the most cutting edge shooters on PCs and consoles and also cool adaptations on systems like the Nintendo DS and PSP. There is even a port of Doom II for the Ipod! But the gaming community is saturated with FPS titles and more often than not they turn out to be run of the mill shooters that exist solely to fulfill our bloodlust. Lets take a look at qualities that make great shooters awesome.

1. Engine: A great shooter has to have a great engine. A perfect example of this is Valve’s Source engine. Currently I think this is one of the best game engines ever developed. Half Life 2 stunned gamers with fantastic physics, responsive controls and the power to support lots of AI characters in brilliant atmospheres. Unreal’s engine has also powered many great games from its first appearance in Unreal to recent titles like Gears of War in its latest incarnation, Unreal Engine 3. But there have been far less sophisticated game engines that have made for great shooters. Take some of the seminal shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. The games lacked a lot of what we take for granted from FPS games but they were simple and elegant allowing players like myself to roar at the monitor while turning pink demons into goo with my rocket launcher.

2. Weapons: Weapons are a fundamental part of a FPS game experience. Guess what, if they suck the game sucks. You can’t go wrong with the staples of shooter weaponry:

The shotgun: Use it to boomstick your way through hellspawn in the Doom games, rack up one shot kills in online Halo 2 or just go around blowing holes in stuff in F.E.A.R.

The Pistol: All pistols are not created equally. Sometimes they suck like the Luger in Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Thankfully later replaced by the Colt .45) but sometimes they are awesome like the controversial pistol in Halo.

Melee favs: These weapons are often hated but sometimes brilliant. The Energy sword from Halo 2 is a thing of beauty as is the crowbar from the Halflife games. But the ax from Quake… gimme a break.

And last but certainly not least there is the rocket launcher: Man oh man there is nothing more satisfying than fragging some jerk online with a rocket launcher. It has such finality. My top rocket launcher has to be from Quake . That thing was burly and made the holder quite a menace playing Team Fortress.

3. AI: I think that NPC AI is really important in first person shooters. Games with stupid AI are almost unplayable. “Sure come on out and stand motionlessly firing while I shoot you in the face… no problem you can all get some, here wait till I reload and walk up to you.” Ugh it is embarrassing. Good AI always takes the player by surprise. I still remember the first time I was killed playing Farcry. I sat back in my seat with a puzzled expression wondering how I had been flanked and taken out by a group of computer programs. It really made a big difference.

4. Environment: Games are a great way to explore fictional worlds. One of the great features of a FPS is that you view the environment through the eyes of your character so you feel like you are actually there. Make the environment interesting, fun and interactive. Some games that really stretched our imaginations in this respect are Unreal, Turok, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and the Call of Duty Games.

5. Action: Give us some action! Am I playing a tedious puzzle game or am I going to level a horde of zombies with a flamethrower? I am not saying that I don’t appreciate a good mind bender in the middle of my mayhem but sometimes it is imperative to blow stuff up. Watch out though some games become nothing more than run and gun.

Well I hope that you enjoyed my two cents on first person shooters. It is the kind of hobby that keeps video card companies in business and me in the poor house. Warm up your mouse hand and get ready for a long day of Counter Strike dudes, I’ll be out there.

Well the PS3 has launched! Everyone can now just calm down and play for a while instead of gibbering over the possibility of another day without their PS3. But a note to everyone who stood in line and a few people who didn’t stand in line… behave yourselves! There are going to be enough PS3s for everybody. Just calm down, have some coco and relax!

I just love a good console war. Man when those giants like Sony and Microsoft start butting heads it really makes for a good circus. So with the holidays approaching we have to look at the best way to spend our bonuses on flashing screens and crisp graphics.

1)    Playstation 3 – The PS3 is clearly the most powerful system among the next gen consoles. The GPU and the processor speeds are out of this world and the performance should be outstanding. I like it because it looks like something Darth Vader would have plugged into his TV. The cons, this will further extend your student debt. To really maximize its potential you’ve got to spend about 3.2 million dollars on various HD TV’s sound systems and the unit itself is pretty pricey too. Not to mention the hospital bills that you can incur from the sheer shock of being blown away by graphics of this caliber.
2)    XBOX 360 – The 360 got the jump on Sony and Nintendo with the release of their next gen system. It is powerful, looks great and Microsoft has been seeing some great developers. Cons, what the crap is up with Halo 3 coming in spring of 2007? I can safely say that I will buy the 360 on the day that I can put Halo 3 inside of it and start blasting Covenant with the sweet sweet shotgun. But until then I will continue to sneak into my roommate’s bedroom and play his while he is at work.
3)    Nintendo Wii – This console definitely looks like the most “fun” out of the three. Crazy motion-control-stick-laser-controller is awesome and Nintendo really focuses on games that break away from the standard zombies+chainsaws = fun and emotional scaring platform. Plus it is the only box that is reasonably affordable. Cons, not quite the powerhouse that the PS3 and XBOX appear to be.

Conclusions – I don’t want to tell anybody which console to buy. I shudder at the thought of a full on fanboy massacre bloodying the pages of DTLI. Do your research, pick your box and make sure it is something that you will enjoy. I loved my PS2, XBOX and Game Cube so I am pretty sure that I’ll be happy with any of these next gens. The only thing I’ll have to wait for now is a raise.

Games. We all play games, some people are console gamers, some PC and some people play things like cricket and polo but those guys are usually jerks. I myself am a PC gamer with console envy as I can’t fit them all in my entertainment center. Luckily mtvU has been gracious enough to set me up in a position to write about something that I love… marmalade, no wait! Gaming! So come join me as we explore the world of fanboys, console wars and WOW fanatics. I promise to treat everybody with a fair and equal amount of sarcasm. If you want to read it Does This Look Infected will keep you up to date on the latest in the gaming world.

Stay tuned for more content…