Ranting

Let me speak a moment about video games. This argument has been made by better people than me, but, as far as I can tell, I am one of the stronger proponents of it. Video games need to stop sucking. Well, they don't "suck" per se. At least not in the typical definition. What video games are doing is trying to be overly mature like an annoying younger brother. This recent occurrence is best shown in the fact that colors are disappearing from our video games in lieu of a brown tint. For simplicity, I will entitle this happening as "The Browning."

Video games were born of color, once the technology came into existence. Obviously, Pong was not in technicolor. However, look at games on the Atari 2600, Colecovision, and Intellivision. Every game from Frogger to Bomb Squad contained vivid colors and for more reason than colors are pretty. They were colorful because what the games were depicting were fantasy; just figments of somebody's imagination. Video games weren't trying to be realistic. Developers knew their audience, and their audience wanted to feel like they were tripping on LSD. That is perfectly admirable. But now things have changed.

Video games aren't only for the fat, loser kids who sit alone in their darkened basement trying to beat the next dungeon in Legend of Zelda. Video games are, for lack of a better word, "cool" now. Well, some are. See, games like Mario Galaxy for the Wii or Ratchet and Clank are considered to be either gay or childish. The "cool" games are, of course, sports games (Madden) and games that have succumbed to The Browning. These are primarily first-person shooters, like Crysis and the poster child of them all, Halo. However, The Browing also affects games in the third-person shooter genre such as Army of Two and Gears of War.

I'm not saying The Browning shouldn't exist. I imagine myself feeling the same way if every game was an ocular assault of colors so powerful I went into convulsions. It isn't the fact that these games exist that bother me. It is the fact that these are the games that create the future trends. Halo, with all of its marginally-fun glory, has been a juggernaut in sales. Game developers, as standard human beings, care about money and their own wellbeing, so they take what made Halo so popular and apply it to every game they make from then on.

But, like I said, developers are only doing this to make a buck. If the public would stop buying these games, then they'd stop making them. So, there are two things that need to happen for me to be happy. First, internet game critics need to take their heads out of their rears and judge a game objectively. I know avoiding the media and their hype is difficult to do, but just because WWE.com says Army of Two is going to be amazing, doesn't make it a fact. Hear me Tycho of Penny-Arcade? I love your style of writing and wit, but you have lost your spine when it comes to gaming. I haven't heard you say a bad thing about an over-hyped game in years. Sorry for that tangent, but it had to be said. Anyway, critics need to get back to doing what their job entails: Criticizing.

Secondly, and here is the big one, consumers need to stop buying these games. A game can be perfectly fun without having a dirt-colored tint. Super Mario Strikers, Super Smash Bros.: Brawl, and No More Heroes are all fun games that have many colors. It is you, the consumer, who is stifling the creativity of the video game industry, and, most importantly pissing me off.

To end the video game rant portion of this update, I would like to thank Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation for providing the public with criticisms of games, even those he likes.

Moving on. It is less than two weeks from the Iron Man movie. I am very excited about it, to say the least. Every time I see the trailer I perk up. The action looks great, the acting looks great, the effects look great. This entire movie looks great. I read a review from Australia and they seem to agree. From everything I have been reading, the general public agrees, too. I was very nervous about this movie for a very long time Considering it was first scheduled to be finished by the summer of 2005, I think my anxiety was well placed. However, if you want something done well, it takes time. Look at Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Both of those games had enormous delays, but are considered to be one of the best games for their respective systems. I hope for the best, and if a sequel is created, that it involves either Titanium Man or The Ghost. Both are badass villains, in my opinion.

Even though I am wary of new television series, I will give one a try if it recommended by a friend. So, with said recommendation, I gave Life a try. It is a drama on NBC about a detective who was wrongfully imprisoned for more than ten years and has recently been released and put back on the force. I wasn't a fan of the premise, but I gave the show a shot and watched the first season, and I have to say it was good. It didn't blow me away, and I have small problems with it, such as the weird facial expressions and over0bearing zen-like attitude of the main character, but it is a good show none the less.

Of course, I can't talk about TV without mentioning the recent return of two of my favorite sitcoms, The Office and 30 Rock. The debut episode for both of these shows sucked. The Office was overly dramatic and awkward, and 30 Rock was filmed with a different vibe and hardly even seemed like the same show. However, this last Thursday's episodes were great on both ends. The Office, while still awkward, went back to its roots of taking place at the office. 30 Rock brought back one of my favorite characters, Dennis, and it was a comedic masterpiece.

I saw a pretty weird movie a while ago. It's called Six String Samurai. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of the 1950s U.S., and the main character is a martial artist Buddy Holly lookalike with a sword in his guitar. The story is bizarre, but in a good way. The action scenes are actually really well done. A lot better than my expectations. The cinematography was weird, but it went well with the vibe of the movie. If you are an action movie fan, or a fan of weird movies in general, I say you should give it a shot.