It's extremely important that we encourage America's most talented video game players to use their abilities for the betterment of society as a whole, rather than making endless "watch me play" videos before revealing their Third Reich sympathies and ruining it all. To this end, the Bee Hive State is, as usual, way ahead of the curve by offering scholarship opportunities to the real student athletes of the future: vidiots who are wisely investing the precious gift of life in murder simulators. After all, if we're going to totally pwn foreign newbs in this most important of all arenas it's critical we develop the very best Mormon gamers.
The University of Utah will become the first big-time sports school to offer scholarships for competitive video gaming, so far the most high-profile entry into collegiate esports.
It's much bigger than other "esports" like, ah, building ham radios or whatever. All we need now is academic incentives for "committed self-abuse seven times in one night instead of writing the term paper."
Backed by the Salt Lake City school’s video game development program, Utah’s first varsity esports team will play Riot Games’ popular League of Legends and compete in Riot’s collegiate league. More teams in other games will be announced this year.
Pffft, call me when you get a Bayou Billy team together.
"We want others schools to join us," said A.J. Dimick, who will run the new esports program. "Let’s move this along together."
Some people think the safe spaces, thought crime laws and general retrograde atmosphere has ruined higher education and it can't get any worse, but I'm here to tell you it can and we need to get this moving along.
Funding for the program will come directly from Utah’s Entertainment Arts & Engineering department, which The Princeton Review named the country’s best video game design program in 2016.
Their alumni were responsible for both the "hit stick" and the "passing cone" options in Dat Madden.
Gamers on Utah’s League of Legends team will all receive partial scholarships at first, Dimick said. The long-term plan is to expand to more games and to make money through marketing and sponsorship deals, eventually offering full scholarships to as many as 35 gamers.
At least we have our priorities straight.
The exciting future of collegiate athletics.
The University of California, Irvine, recently built an esports-specific arena on its campus, and the Big Ten Conference’s television network earlier this year began broadcasting competitions between club teams from its member schools.
Whether we'll start giving incentives for television viewing remains unknown as of this writing.
Is it possible to become too passive, voyeuristic and, frankly, broken to the point where the internet won't cater to your needs anymore? Clearly not, but what about the desire to watch others eat? The process of mastication is indeed one of the most beautiful mysteries of nature and you might even learn some new tricks. Then there's the comforting illusion of social interaction with any chance of failure removed by the one-way nature of the exchange. We might not have those wall-sized televisors yet (patience, patience) but we're clearly getting closer to finding ways to completely simulate a normal human existence while remaining a pathetic troglodyte.
Twitch Interactive Inc., the video-game streaming service Amazon.com Inc. acquired for almost $1 billion two years ago, hinted at what could be the next sensation in Internet broadcasting: watching people eat.
Instead of watching some up-talking millennial play Bayou Billywe can now watch them shove edible objects into their gobs.
Dubbed “social eating,” the practice is popular in South Korea and is picking up steam in the U.S., Twitch Chief Executive Officer Emmett Shear said Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
I guess it's "social eating" in the same sense you might acquire a "social disease." If those Japanese cartoon monsters waiting to be caught in quarries and artillery testing ranges taught us nothing else it's that we no longer have any resistance to terrible societal trends from the Orient.
It’s a difficult pastime for people in the U.S. to initially grasp, he acknowledged, but he said it’s gaining traction, along with rising demand for non-gaming content.
I demand more non-gaming content on this video game streaming service! Also, there should be more shadow puppets and balloon races during NFL broadcasts.
Disbelief about the growth potential for Twitch, a platform for watching people play video games, has taught him not to discount something he doesn’t personally understand, Shear said.
"You losers, man. I don't even pretend to understand your pathology, but on the other hand I can get paid, so here's your gaping maw films."
A Twitch streamer with the user name Hacklyn was eating a bowl of soup Wednesday morning, with about 20 people watching live. She was listening to music and chatting with people about relationships while they watched her dig in.
Communication, I think is important. *sucks up noodles* Got to be open with your feelings *disgusting slurping* You can't assume your partner knows what's going on in your head. *licks bowl*
Honesty is important to your relationship, too.
Investors have been watching to see how Amazon integrates Twitch’s highly engaged audience of video game enthusiasts -- numbering 10 million daily users -- with its offerings in online shopping and streaming video and music.
After you get done watching the vidiot games, how about buying one, sucker?
As the company further seeks to combine services from its businesses, could the the next big step be streaming video of a gaming champion eating a box of cookies delivered via Amazon drone?
Or will it be your entire city going up in flames as civilization collapses? Who knows!
Today's incredible video is the sort of thing that might be unearthed one day by alien visitors trying to understand why they've stumbled on an otherwise habitable planet completely free from even the most rudimentary signs of civilization. Well, that or just another forgettable "Look at these guys play a game!" video that has become all the rage with generation nothing because simply ruining your life with joystick time is no longer pathetic enough and we need a new sub-basement of failure where the experience is made completely passive. Stir in some unfunny jokes and a domestic conflict worthy of a Cops: Special Basement Dwelling Loser Edition and entertainment is on the way.
Watching other people watch a loading screen. People do this. Voluntarily.
The two court jesters of this modern era are already deep in some game, selecting from a variety of guns. Before fears that these murder simulator players might take their violence into the so-called "real world" can be fully realized one of the disheveled "gamers" lazily makes a joke about his friend having a small penis. Neither man laughs. This is great, I can see why it's so popular. Well, back to fish-eying that "please wait" alert.
There's some random clicking, uncomfortable eye contact between the gentlemen bonding over an arcade game and yet more loading bars. I'm assuming the floating gun starts soon, but it's strictly an article of faith with little to back it up. While we're waiting we get another sort of gun show as both vidiots favor us with some bicep poses for reasons unknown. Suffice it to say, progressive resistance training must be sacrificed if you want to have a career in bleep blooping for the 'tubes.
Would you believe this was obtained with no regular exercise and a diet consisting mainly of salted snacks and sugar water?
The lack of mass, hypertrophy, striation or vascularity generates a fair amount of shared mirth from our hosts and it's this hearty laughter that causes the "flip" we were promised. A woman whose vocal demeanor suggests she's our hero's mother more than his missing soul half interrupts the gaiety to declare the baby isn't sleeping and she's not happy. The door slams, we get some footage of what looks like a "You're a soldier!" bit of interactive television and some profanity is exchanged.
This guy's life is basically the cargo cult equivalent of normal adult married life. The elements that should be present are there, but they're clearly just pathetic fabrications, a feeble imitation of the real thing, an illusion with physical form. Meanwhile the failure and pathology one associates with those island cultists is present and very, very real. Insofar that we can judge society's trajectory by its dregs and outcasts, what we see here is not a good omen.
Anyway, the electronic lotus eater is all "Get off my back Mom Wife" but expresses it with misapplied sweating words. This earns him the threat of having the computer taken away. Meanwhile the virtual soldier continues to plod forward, in a strange way representing the healthy masculinity and willingness to sacrifice for a greater good that's ironically so totally absent in the human wreckage guiding this flickering puppet.
We get the dreaded double dog dare. I can't believe she skipped right over the double dare right to the ultimate version. Yes, these are ostensibly adults. The action man on the screen finally reaches a building and is promptly killed. Rest in peace imaginary disposable hero. You deserved better. The bickering continues.
You are an emotionally stunted man-child. Game Over.
More cursing, a "Congratulations" given out sarcastically (Yeah, just what we needed) and another slam of the door follows. We then get a debate over what's causing the "not not sleeping" which I'm pretty sure would you mean that sleeping is actually happening, what with the mangled grammar and all. The video game is loading again. Oh well, it's worth it for twenty seconds of exciting walking action, while being screamed at the entire time by reminders of my gut-shot life.
"Look at the spam!" we are told after several seconds of dead air. Just riveting stuff. Finally the soldier character is back, apparently fully healed and ready to resume his pointless and unwinnable struggle. Huh, might be an allegory or something there. We learn the other half of our dream video game team "Doesn't have a kid" which somehow isn't the most shocking revelation. It's hard to imagine a better form of birth control than playing toy soldiers on your computer all day, everyday.
We end with a small amount of uncomfortable self-awareness, noting "She sounded like my Mom." Yeah. I'm sure the "Did you get a job today?" nagging will resume shortly. Until then, there's a war to be won, a pixelated field to run through and an eager audience that just can't get enough.
You have to keep sensible priorities in life. Eroding freedoms? Who cares. Endless doomed foreign wars that leave things worse than before we got involved? Blah, whatever. Corruption at the highest levels of government that has become so brazen they're not even bothering to conceal it anymore? Let me know if it ever comes out on Netflix, man. Messing with my video games? You realize, of course, this means war.
Yes, this makes sense. I can't be bothered that my neighbors became unpersons for speaking their minds or that we're funding terrorists in some country half a world away. What matters is keeping that electronic lotus eating device running and keeping it free and pure. Sadly, it appears we're losing this battle. Today in a very special episode of DotTeeVee (you might want to bring your whole family in to watch this one) we're going to glimpse at the depressing future of the murder simulator and then, because frankly this video is too short and lame for a whole entry, break down the always illuminating YouTube commentary.
Yes, I'm actually going to read and analyze comments on a one minute YouTube "vidyagame" whine. Abandon all hope, etc.
Before we can even get going I'm forced to watch an unskippable commercial. Please remember this, it will become important soon.
Music plays and we see the menu of an EA Sports game, i.e. panels everywhere that take up as much space as possible to give the illusion of lots of features. Is this what's wrong with the future of gaming?
No.
Just to get all your guesses out of the way it's also not the encroachment of politically correct censorship, "save often" replacing "become good" as the way to get through games, little kids calling you incorrectly used slurs in online play, load times, buying a glorified Beta that's full of bugs and requires multiple patches, the expectation that you'll want to be on-line all the time, the same three games being made over and over, the fact that EA sports releases are little more than roster updates protected by an illegal monopoly or the times when your friends sweat on the controller.
You mean "pucks," right?
There's an option to watch a video to earn pucks/coins which are presumably an in-game currency used to buy different colored skates or unlock the Eastern Conference or whatever. All you have to do is watch a video and you're that much closer to being allowed to play as the Washington Capitals without buying the right to do so for $9.99 on X-Box Live. What could possibly go wrong?
It's a commercial.
I really have to wonder what this guy was expecting to see. Hockey goons feeding each other the meat candy? The video for "Round and Round" by Ratt? Maybe in paradise that's what you'd get, but in this fallen world you're shown a goofy ad for Philadelphia Cheese Steaks where "Steak" and "Cheese" are said repeatedly while images of the same are shown. I love getting outraged as much as the next person, but it's hard to consider this a trick bag in light of the fact that it's an optional choice that was freely made, unlike, oh I don't know, having to sit through fifteen seconds of b.s. to see this guy's one minute video.
Besides, you still get "coins" that you can use to unlock genderless romances in Career Mode, right? That's a shuck, too, apparently. You only get 200, which I guess isn't a lot. Let us all weep for the grim future of simulated hockey.
How will I afford the new elite set items for my Right Wing Power Forward?
That's the entire video. Yeah, really.
Komment Korner, Special Effort Edition
There's a lot of comments discussing this modern masterpiece, of course, but we'll separate them into some broad categories to make this manageable.
The Totally Worthless
Multiple claims of being "first," internet slang that was cool and exciting twenty years ago and assorted other statements completely bereft of even the slightest value. Yes, actual real human beings, debatable I know, provided this drivel. Sad future of video games, meet the sad future of humanity.
Lol
Lol
Wtf hahaha 😵😂😂
Lol
Ok then
lol
First
Lmfao
LMFAO
1st
1
Yes, all those el oh els are different people. Is it wrong to hope that President Putin "accidentally" bumps that big red button?
You post garbage, Maverick. I like that.
The "What's the Big Deal" Opposition
What's more fun than being contrary just because you can? Well, lots of things, but when your life is a vast wasteland of watching other people play games on YouTube you take your pleasure where you can get it.
Dont really see the big deal here Johnny
I enjoy the commercial, i really do actually. And i'll take any source of coins.
Wow u cry about that lol
How many coins did you expect?
You dont have to watch genius...
The Optimists
Glass half FULL, am I right? For these people, it definitely is and they want to share that positivity with all their nameless and faceless friends in cyberspace!
I went to that Blues game that happened that day.i loved it the best my first game
Don't hate EA! They're people after all and they need money just like
everyone else does! They have to feed their families! Don't you have any
decency left Johnny?!?!
at least the ad was entertaining....i guess
haters are gonna hate. take a lesson from T. Swift. just shake them off.
alright sir, I love the beard by the way
Dunno. As long as it keeps video games at 60 bucks.
Like Rain On Your Wedding Day
I wasn't the only one to notice a certain irony.
Them putting ads in the game makes them more money, just like you making this bs effortless video makes you more money
ironically, i had to sit thru an unskippable ad to watch this
Sad future of 2BC: making half-assed minute long videos that looked to
made in Windows Movie Maker that would serve better as a tweet just for
the views.
This has to be the most pointless video. Everybody knows about the ads.
Yet you decide to make a video about it for what? A few extra bucks in
your pocket?
They're the Angry Video Game Nerds
Now we're talking! Let's get into the proper spirit and rage against the dying of the light.
dude honestly fuck EA, they also patched selling fut coins in fifa 15 by
adding a minimum and maximum selling price for players, so u cant for
example put a bronze player into sale for 2mil. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT
MONEY, once again FUCK EA
Those scum-sucking bottom-feeding bastards over at EA would do anything for a quick buck.
More commercials on next gen than actual game modes... a sad future indeed
growth of capitalism + upcoming generation of entitled shitbrains = no funwtf was that for a free EA coins advertisement?!?!?!?!?!?!
And the sad part is i had one of those cheese steaks today, there not even that good.
Open Mic Night
Don't you love to laugh? Sure you do, you braying imbecile. Here's some humor attempts of wildly varying quality for your consideration.
I want a steak and cheese panini now.
This made me want a sandwich
The sad future of video games* * = If all you play are shitty sports games...
EA starts to press the lemon a little bit too much
That face doe
Digression! Digression!
Let's wrap it up with some comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the contents of this video. Come on bro, make some "Civ" videos instead of this!
CIVVVVVVVV
What is sad I you can't upload a mother fucking halo
Where is the new Arizona coyotes be a gm mode video
I dunno if its worst then waiting 3 weeks for a civ video.
Johnny in your gm mode you should for the rest of the year put lou
morris as cap because if this is the last year with the coyotes you will
never see lou be the cap for your team
Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.
How would you like to hear about massive government waste involving your tax dollars? I know, the Big Game is on soon and thinking causes physical pain and sexual side-effects, but in this case I promise it will be worth it. We're talking gambling monkeys, rabbits that live in the lap of decadent luxury and some Republican trapped on the wrong side of history trying to get someone, anyone, to actually care about this appalling misappropriation. Yes, this should be the new youth fad. "Hey dawg, let's rap about the appropriation of federal funds. Totally rad! Twenty-three skiddoo!" More than a dozen lucky rabbits were given Swedish massages four times a day, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, as part of a study to figure out whether massage can help recovery times after strenuous exercise — a practice Sen. Tom Coburn says makes a mockery of federal spending.
I can see giving tax dollars to "moderate" terrorists or blimp attack defense domes, but I didn't get all those automatic pay check deductions so Bugs Bunny can get endless deep tissue stimulation! Basic research, the oldest con game in the book.
The rabbit massages are one of the hundred wasteful products Mr. Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, identified in his latest edition of the Wastebook, an annual compendium of the ridiculous and outrageous items in government spending, which he is releasing on Wednesday.
On Wastebook you post pictures of yourself achieving nothing of any value, sometimes paired with self-congratulatory text updates. So it's just like that other one.
Every year this guy lists the outrages and nothing ever changes. We need to start caring about PEOPLE, man. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna fall off this bar stool, stagger home and beat my family savagely.
Other highlights included the National Science Foundation paying academics to teach monkeys to gamble
"No, Chin Chin! You don't split up two tens!!!
A first-person combat shooting video game the Army developed — but which intelligence officials fear terrorists could use to train their own recruits.
I don't want to alarm you, but the terrorists may have access to video games. Seriously, what is this? I always assumed terrorists trainees (complete with special little name tags) just watch endless episodes of "Jersey Shore," "Teen Mom" and "Real Housewives" until the proper hatred for the American Satan has been instilled.
Indeed, Hezbollah has adapted the game’s design to train suicide martyrs.
"Pretend the dots are innocent people and the ghosts represent enemy soldiers."
Mr. Coburn’s investigators also found scientists putting mountain lions, monkeys, rats and cows on treadmills.
Our national mountain lion obesity problem is deeply troubling. This is the way forward.
In the case of the rabbits, they weren’t put on treadmills but were forced to exercise in order to create stress.
"Get off that treadmill, Thumper! What do you think you are, a cow or something?"
Science!
Taxpayers paid $387,000 for the two-year study, which concluded that other studies were right, and massage seemed to help in recovery — though it wasn’t clear that rabbit physiology could be extrapolated to humans. The rabbits were euthanized at the end of the study, Mr. Coburn’s report says.
It's funny that in the rush to get all scandalized over the sweet life of these jumping vermin we kind of glossed over the whole "euthanized" thing.
The country fell short by roughly 536 impeachment hearings that year.
Who Is John Galt?
Next time Sen. Coburn needs life saving modern medial care, maybe he should decline as it is almost certainly grounded in basic research that, since he has no expertise or ability to put in context, he'd declare was a waste of taxpayers money when it was performed.
You've got to pass what's in the cupboard before you can see what's in the cupboard
Barbara, I think you're falling for a classic Tom Coburn misdirection.
Check Out My Books!
Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.
His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.
Hi Lucky, how would you like to bet some federal reserve magic on "Red?" Of course you would. But oh no, you're young and therefore full of wisdom and exciting new ideas that definitely need to be implemented immediately because stupid old tradition is, by definition, bad. For the nothing generation the thrill of wagering against probabilities stacked against you simply isn't enough. There must be skill, the thrill of the hunt, the bleep bloop of the video game. Fortunately, Friend Casino is prepared to cater to your unique pathology.
With the gambling industry anxious to attract younger players, some slot machine makers are looking to challenge the generation raised on video games.
More like raised by video games, am I right? Can't wait to play that "Mass Effect" slot machine where you can romance various alien organisms in between losing all your rent money.
Players in the United Kingdom will soon get a chance to make real wagers after sinking a battleship, knocking a character off a perch, or playing a word worth a triple-word score.
It's time like this I'm sad that the course of human events caused us to sever ties with our "friends" across the Atlantic. Just think, we could be playing "Sink the Arizona!" or "Knock the Chav off the Porch" or "Scrabble" in our casinos.
In Mexico City, Merkur Gaming is testing a slot machine that has players sit inside a cozy, futuristic-looking orb much like sensory heavy arcade video games.
Get into this orb. Wager. You're going to love it. It's all part of a push to offer more skill-based, social games to attract younger players while retaining more traditional games for women in their 50s and 60s — the most lucrative players.
So all those "Matlock" machines aren't going anywhere.
For them, the allure of slot machines has been simple. Pull the handle or press a button, hear lots of noise and watch excitedly as the reels come to a stop, often so close to a big win that players can't wait to try again.
I think we can all agree that variant response conditioning rules.
At a recent convention of casino game makers in Las Vegas, Edvard Toth, studio head for California-based Gamblit Gaming, sat in front of a four-sided touch-screen table showing how a flick of his finger could launch a virtual slingshot sending a puppy clad in a police uniform flying toward a zombie cat.
You definitely want to get in on the ground floor of the coming "Police Puppies vs. Feline Ghouls" trend that will soon be sweeping our nation.
"This is a slot machine that doesn't look like a slot machine," he said.
Paradoxes such as this one mean big money for you and your criminal syndicate and/or tribal nation.
To meet regulatory rules, the new titles must be as much a game of chance as a traditional slot machine — a requirement that makes it difficult to design a game that includes an element of skill.
I'm down two grand...but I've been so accurate shooting officer puppy at the undead cats...what's going on here???
In the case of Gamblit games, mastering one of the more skilled challenges doesn't win a bet but instead triggers the spin of a reel or wheel, or a roll of dice for a chance at real money.
Before you even get a shot at the rigged game you'll have to clear some hurdles. This is so hip and with it, the young generation refreshing the Earth, man.
What's Hot: Tropical insanity, shooting a cannon at the Sphinx and disco.
Slot machine makers have tried to insert skilled games into traditional slot machines before, Toth said. But it's akin to sticking a slot machine inside the classic video game "Call of Duty" and expecting his grandmother to like it, he said.
You just know that dated reference was probably even worse before the editor fixed it a bit. Probably "Pac Man" or "Space Invaders."
The company is licensed in Nevada but will still need regulators to sign off on the technical side of its games once if it gets a U.S. casino order.
Regulators. We regulate the technical side of pitch the dog games. We're damn good, too. But you can't be any geek off the street. Gotta by handy at realizing "Call of Duty" isn't the hot new game anymore, earn your keep.
With that in mind, makers of more traditional slot machines are offering models with themes incorporating reality TV shows, 1970s superheroes and 1990s sitcom characters.
Match three similar pieces of pop culture vomit and win big prizes!
Just like in the movie 'Wargames' , the only way to win is not to play the game. I predict failure. I'm 35 and have done some online gambling, I don't trust it.
Kids gambled on a brown guy with a silly Star Wars name, and our country lost.
Then, after my father died, I learned my mother was gambling at a local casino.
Check Out My Books!
Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.
His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.
Today's slush pile entry would by very atypical if this series had more than two entries, counting this one. It's a fairly recent release (2009) for the Xbox 360. It's from a legit source (Eidos, Warner Brothers) instead of some budget company located somewhere in the Dinaric Alps. The production values are top notch, the game play tight. In short, everything about this one screams "it should at least be average." Add the fact that I experience many of the symptoms of arousal when looking at battleships and you'd think I'd be all over this one, but there it was at the bottom of a fudging box, beneath other boxes, under a table, a table covered with clutter. In the basement. Yup, this is the video game slush pile. Let's strap it on.
This one is a sequel to Battlestations Midway, although because I never played that game, it really doesn't matter. Wikipedia claims there are call-backs to events from that game hidden here and there, but it also claims that Utopian Anarchism is a workable political idea so who knows. Either way, this one is a combination strategy/action mixer that doesn't really do either one particularly well.
Has there ever been a credible game mixing these elements, ever? It just doesn't work, the action either renders the strategy meaningless as long as your fast-twitch reflexes are at a sufficient level or there's only one acceptable tactical solution to the "puzzle" and no amount of hand-eye agreement can help. In this game it was mostly the latter, which I'm be fine with, this ain't Dynasty Warriors, except that the one acceptable solution was usually obscured behind confusing and frustrating game-play.
All the "Victory at Sea" stuff that could possibly be crammed into one image.
Again, production values are through the roof. You get a comprehensive manual (you'll need it, too) and a nice poster with all the stats of the various planes and ships. Contrast that with the recent trend toward a single scrap of paper with epilepsy warnings and we're off to a good start. The good impression continued with the graphics and presentation.
I know this is all very facile, but that's how video game reviews are, sorry. If video game analysts did book reviews you'd get several paragraphs about how "all the letters were clearly printed, I could easily tell what part of the alphabet they represented" and "the page quality was excellent and it provided the perfect medium for presenting those amazing letters" with the plot maybe mentioned as an afterthought toward the end of the review. I'm trying to avoid this, but there's only so many ways I can say "flying the planes was difficult" without running out of awkward similes.
Flying the planes was difficult, like trying to write your name while making circles in opposite directions with both feet. I know the goal was realism, but having to fight with two sticks just to turn around and doing it wrong half the time seemed a little excessive. The ships weren't any better, mainly because the stick doesn't steer you, but instead sets your course, which again is probably how a real Light Cruiser works but it takes a lot of getting used to. The ships are slow, which again is to be expected, but watching yourself glacially close into range while madly pressing the fire button without result because you're out of range or incorrectly positioned isn't exactly seat-edge stuff.
Somehow they managed to make this boring.
Firing on things seems an exercise in hoping for the best. I was mashing the trigger, wondering if anything was even being achieved. Everything seems to miss. When you do hit it isn't even that satisfying, mainly because of the fluky nature of the success. In the air it's better because your cross-hair turns red when you can actually hit something, but naval artillery doesn't have that courtesy for some reason.
There's a campaign mode and also skirmishes. Sadly, I only played the campaign mode, missing the opportunity to hear a ten-year old shout incorrectly used slurs into a headset while sinking my navy. Oddly enough, the "Japan" campaign seems to be featured, it's listed first and is what you'd end up on if you just kept hitting start from the title screen. This campaign starts with Pearl Harbor and I'll freely admit I didn't think that was appropriate, call me thin-skinned if you want. I mean, does the American campaign end with you flying the Enola Gay over Hiroshima so we get equal and opposite bad taste? I wouldn't know, I only got to the third mission.
Seriously, a video game level where you attack largely defenseless and obsolete battleships in a surprise attack? This is fun? Maybe they were just trolling for controversy, but to the best of my knowledge none occurred, so we're just left with a boring and offensive level, like one of those "Shoot the civilians, win big points, this is mentally healthy, honest!" stages in a first person shooter.
Anyway, the American campaign. It starts after Midway and for me also ended shortly thereafter. You're tasked with defending a carrier from a surface attack fleet in the third mission and it is basically helpless. In actual history, of course, carriers dominated battleships and destroyed their usefulness. Here, it was just the opposite. It didn't help matters that the battleship fleet seemed to fly across the map with alarming speed, while my own BB creeped slowly toward the edge of the map, chasing a Japanese carrier, but never seeming to close the gap.
So the Enterprise became a metal reef and, I would assume, America lost the war. The giant hit the snooze alarm, terrible resolve forgotten.
It can launch four mainly useless planes.
I will concede I was probably doing a lot of things wrong, even after hours of play, reviewing the manual, telling myself I wouldn't quit this time (the internet audience is counting on me!) and so on. I never quite figured out how to make the tactical elements work. The few successes were drowned in frustrating defeats, the battles take an eternity to play through (before losing) and frankly I have better things to do (really!). There probably is a good, deep, fun game in here somewhere, but I just couldn't crack the shell of it.
Graphics: Ships look like ships, planes look like planes, smoke and explosions look like something from a video game. Pretty good overall.
Control: Ugh. I always felt like I was fighting against the controls to get things done. The ships handle like grocery shopping carts, the planes often seem out of control. It got better as I played. I'm probably just a whiny baby.
Depth: There's a lot. The different ships and planes offer a variety of options, you can order entire fleets and squadrons (well, in theory, anyway) and there's lots of historical and speculative battles or just straight up death matches if you don't care about any of that. There actually was a nice instruction manual.
Overall: Back in the box.
The Critics Rave!
The control interface is still unwieldy, the action is still stodgy and
unfulfilling, and the aesthetics are still hampered by distinctly
last-gen failings. - play.tm
The Western voiceovers are caricatures of the worst order; one guy talks
with the bombastic delivery of Duff Man from The Simpsons, and the rest
aren't that much better. - IGN
There were even a couple of occasions where our swine allies stole our kills! - gamesradar
Check Out My Books!
Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.
His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.
Why are the youth so bad, dumb, criminal, untidy and generally bereft of all value? This is the question our media is always struggling to answer, with wildly varying success. One possible explanation that keeps popping up is the evils of the joystick. No, not that, video games. And I'm not talking about critically panned Eye-talian racing games. I'm referring to soul killers like that car theft game, that one where you shoot stuff and Ms. Pac-Man (Out eating dots without a male relative acting as an escort? No veil? This is blasphemy!).
These mind rotters have even breached the citadel that is the not-quite nation of Wales. More evidence of society's coming morality-based cardiac episode, that's what this is. Let's see what's going on around here, yeah?
A HEADTEACHER has sent a letter to parents after becoming aware of “extremely concerning behaviour” of pupils, some as young as six, which he puts down to a violent video game.
I guess the caps lock was broken when this person received this formal title. Are you even aware, HEADTEACHER? Kids playing tag, running around and yelling...must be the insidious work of Murder Simulator 5: Operation Miami Beach.
Pupils at Coed-y-Brain Primary School, in Llanbradach, have been, according to head teacher Morian Morgan, “initiating games that involve simulating rape and sexual intercourse” and “having detailed discussion of drug use”.
All right class, let's have a detailed discussion of drug use. For me, it started in the sixties, man. Yeah. *stares off into space for ten minutes*
Unless you count "Custer's Revenge" I don't think there's ever been a video game involving player-controlled sexual assault, but hey, in for a penny in for a pound when it comes to fear-mongering and alarmist over-reaction.
Staff at the school discovered that the worrying behaviour was a result of children coming into contact with Grand Theft Auto, or GTA, which follows the dark underworld of America’s biggest cities.
And please none of that "normal behavior that may sometimes seem shocking but is not pathological in any way" excuse making. We can tell the difference. This is the work of the X-Box devil.
Its latest instalment, Grand Theft Auto V, is thought to be one of the best-selling video games of all time, having sold more than 32 million copies worldwide.
Yeah, "thought to be." Superb research here, as usual. "There's some kind of rape game that might sell be best-selling that's mind-screwing kids." It's not like you could use some form of technology, maybe that so-called "information road," to check these facts. Nah, ignorant speculation is easier.
The letter to parents also said children were “acting out scenes from the game which include the strongest of sexual swear words”, “having conversations” about sexual acts and “play acting extremely violent games that sometimes result in actual injury”.
Examples of these extremely violent games that sometimes result in actual injury include touch football, duck-duck-goose and jumping rope.
He said: “I sent out the letter with some trepidation but I’m pleased I sent it because all the comments, as far as I’m aware, have been very supportive.
"Yeah, we don't like the little bastards either!" - The Parents
“The youngest child showing this kind of behaviour was a six-year-old but that is unusual. It was very much a minority re-enacting these acts.”
Sorry I kind of blew it out of proportion, exaggerated like crazy and just made things up.
Video games are the greatest human invention, ever. They transport us to wonderful worlds of fantasy and wonder, worlds rich in horrific imagery, morbid violence and shoe-horned in for no good reason sexual content. They allow ten-year-olds we've never met to yell semi-coherent profanity, improperly applied racial slurs and other assorted gibberish at us through special headsets. They encourage a culture of inactivity, social retardation and binge eating. But it's all worth it because it sure is fun to pretend to shoot stuff on the television.
I'm an old school gamer at heart, cutting my teeth on cigarette-burned Ms. Pac Man cabinets at the local bowling alley. Back then home consoles were crude and unimpressive, so the action was out in what today's gamer fearfully calls "the real world." It was even kind of edgy, in an awesome "falling in with the bad people" way instead of the pathetic "sat in own waste in front of television for 72 hours" malfunction now associated with joy-sticking. Back then we could only dream of somehow taking the magic of the arcade into our own house, possibly via some sort of super-computer. Well, today's subject is all about that idea and how it goes horribly wrong. We're about to unlock an achievement: getting trapped inside awesome video games!
I like the "avenger" part, as if you're seeking bloody retribution against the Space Invaders.
We start with trademark Twist-A-Plot snark. I've won a "super-smart" MEE-II (get it?) computer from the local Burger Bomb. "Those 4,789 cheeseburgers you ate paid off!" I'm told. Yup, that sounds like your typical video gamer. Surprisingly, in the accompanying illustration the "you" avatar is thin, which suggests that either there's some sort of super-metabolism going on here, that childhood obesity did not exist yet in 1983 America so the illustrator couldn't even imagine what it would look like, or I'm on the old scarf 'n' barf diet.
Another "Mallet University" Snob. I'd love to take that Beaver League stuffed shirt down a few pegs!
What would you do with a super-powerful, self-aware computer? Make a fortune from insider trading? Conquer the world? Create the world's most comprehensive pornography collection? Obviously, none of the above. No, it's time to play some Death-Beam Dinosaurs. Yes, this came out in 1983, why do you ask? Anyway, there's no controller, but The Computer gets all televangelist on you and wants you to touch the screen. As you would assume, this immediately sucks you into the game.
I just had a word of knowledge...someone is struggling with death-beam dinosaurs.
The computer explains that if I die in the game I'll die for real and is all "good luck!" I'm in a spaceship being menaced by a seven-headed dinosaur, presumably a dinosaur of the death-beam variety. In fine "Defender" tradition I hit the hyperspace button. This takes me to the "inner circuits," which, as you might expect, is a giant landing strip for video game space ships. After landing I follow a "strange woman" because why wouldn't you?
This leads to falling down a "long black hole," but it's not nearly as righteous as I accidentally made it sound. Instead I meet a sort of computerized La Resistance that are hiding out in "a forgotten packet of circuitry," presumably the circuits that are used for running that financial program that comes packed in. I'm told some of these digitized partisans helped to build the computer. Whoa. That's some good irony, dude. They're all "join us!"
Are you bad enough to select O RLY?
Without any better options, I agree to join. The plan is to have a gamer "distract" the computer with their leet Space Invaders SkIlLz while they shut the computer down. Yes, the computer knows they're going to try to do this, but is so overconfident that it doesn't stop it. Yeah, good plan. They immediately start proposing the I be the "human sacrifice." (!!!) Yup, I know how to pick 'em. Unsurprisingly, I opt out for a "better idea" without even knowing what it is yet.
The other plan involves challenging the computer to a game and then "playing dumb" which will somehow trick an emotionless, super-intelligent machine. I think the mystery of how all these people got trapped in here has been solved. We go round and round a bit more. Man, this book has turned into "The Local City Council Meeting Avenger." Anyway, I get randomly assigned my "game assignment," I guess like those Chinese political prisoners that are forced to play online games all day.
Action! Adventure! Plans! Negotiation!
I'm led to a darkened room where an object that looks a little like a flashlight (just a little?) is on the floor. I'm supposed to use it for the game. It's some sort of laser, but I'm getting rushed by "hairy lumps." Yes, I'm battling Critters. As I start fighting I realize what game I'm in: "Last Stand in Space." Everything was space in the eighties. Also this is bad news because it's "the hardest video game of all." No one has ever defeated the "Mad Munchers" (!) and I'm no exception, being devoured in fairly short order. Game over.
The real "last stand" video game.
This one was all right. It benefited from having fewer self-aware jokes than the last Twist-A-Plot book I read, which helped a pretty risible plot line. The idea of "trapped in the computer" wasn't really mined for all the bizarre weirdness it could have generated, at least in my play-through. Instead the bulk of the story revolved around listening to horrible plans and rejecting them. I guess C-SPAN wouldn't make a very good video game.
Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.comand Barnes & Noble.
