...I'm growing up and I don't like it...

So another holiday season has come and gone. Another holiday season spent with the family cooking a fucking phenomenal prime rib roast and guzzling down wine. And like seasons past, my parents had no idea what to get me (because they apparently don't know what it is I do with my time) and so I ended up with electric toothbrushes and a pretty decent wad of cash.

Now before you all get up in arms about how lucky I should feel and how I'm selfish and rude and an entitled asshole and that there are kids out there who aren't getting anything this year and blah blah blah, this isn't a post about that. I know I'm fortunate. I have a job, I can afford a comfortable life, and I know it. Believe me I know it. This is not a post about that, so put your fucking torches and pitchforks away. There will be plenty of time for that later (especially the way this world is going :P).

No, this is a post about how I think I'm slowly doing what I said I would never do. I'm (scarily enough) starting to grow up and possibly even becoming a wee bit more responsible.

Yeah, I know. That face you're making? The one where your jaw is agape and you're possibly drooling on yourself with shock? Yeah that's the one I'm making too.

See, normally when presented with a couple hundred dollars in cash I wasn't expecting to receive, what did I do? Well I went out and bought the newest, nicest toy that I always wanted by never got. You know what I did this year? Well, for one thing, I still have almost all of it. Do you know what I've spent it on? Groceries, jeans, underwear and a bathroom scale. You know what I'm going to go spend some more of it on? Curtains for my room, probably those thermal insulating ones that everyone keeps telling me to get.

..................................

What the fuck is wrong with me? If you approached me a year ago and said "Hey Eric, you got a couple hundred bucks for Christmas, what are you going to get with that money?" I'm sure (since you all know me and all of my deep dark secrets and personality flaws SO well) you would all have expected me to say "Well the iDroid Galaxy X platinum fire 5G just came out and I'm gonna get EIGHT OF THEM because I need one for EVERY ROOM IN MY HOUSE and sure it'll only cost SIX THOUSAND dollars but now I have a couple hundred to subsidize that cost now so I'M FUCKING GOLDEN BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

And now what am I thinking of? Fucking heat insulating curtains.

I think the worst part about all this is, I have no idea when this happened. Is this a good thing? I guess so? I think I should balance out this newfound maturity by making a slip-n-slide out of Ben 'n Jerry's ice cream in the driveway.

...And that's what I learned today.

...I never thought I would be writing this post...

So some context. I'm writing this in a state of mild to moderate delirium (as many of my blog posts seem to be going now). If you feel like making one yourself, you have to mix 2 parts cold with 1 part coming into work super early and a dash of...well...the topic of today's blog post.

Awkward and awfully written introduction piece over, lets get down to why I'm writing this post.

When I say I never thought I would be writing this blog post, I meant it. I never thought it would come to this...ever. But I guess it's finally that time.

I started playing an MMO. Yes that's right I've started playing Star Wars the Old Republic...and I'm enjoying it...
/social life.

"But why is this so weird? Lots of people play WoW and SWTOR just came out and you're lucky to get in early and blah blah blah blah" I hear you ask. Well I guess this deserves a bit of explanation as all of you out there in Internet land haven't lived your entire life with me the same way I have. (That's a lie...only my friends read this anyways...)

Flashback to the 1990s. Everquest hits the shelves to massive acclaim. What's Eric doing at this point in time (besides awkwardly staring at girls and running away screaming when they made eye contact?), well decrying the unjust system of payment levied by the greedy game companies that Everquest embodied. I swore that I would NEVER play a game that required me to first purchase the client and then PAY MONTHLY to play the damn thing.

Move forwards a bit. The Xbox is released. With it comes Xbox Live. What's Eric doing at this point in time? Playing Halo with his buddies in their basement all the while proclaiming "Never shall I give in to the tyranny of paying to play my games online! This is clearly just money grubbing from the obviously corrupt and greedy Microsoft! But I will stay strong! The internet should be a free and wild place where people can game for free and mod to their hearts' content!" (Did anyone else picture me wearing a monocle and top hat here? Well if you didn't before, you just did.)

Since then, WoW, Eve Online, Guild Wars, LOTRO, and many more have come and gone, yet I remained steadfast in my disapproval of subscription based payment models in gaming.

Well sadly, that has changed. After getting peer pressured into preordering a copy of SWTOR, I got an email saying that I got into the game early. So after logging off my work computer, I proceeded to create my character and start playing. And then I realized several things. First, I realized that it was midnight. Second, I realized I hadn't eaten dinner yet. Third, and most importantly, I realized just how easy it was for people to starve to death playing MMOs. Seriously! I went like 12 fucking hours without food and didn't even realize it. I'M A FAT KID. I LIKE FOOD. AND WHEN A FAT KID IGNORES FOOD FOR THAT LONG, OTHER PEOPLE WOULD ACTUALLY WASTE AWAY AND DIE. Luckily for me I had plenty of calories stored up and the fast didn't bother me, but GODDAMN.

So long story short, this is likely the last blog post I ever write because I will be dead by the end of the month after forgetting to eat or drink or breathe air thanks to this goddamn game. Fuck my life...

...And that's what I learned today.

What we need more of in this gaming world

I've come to a realization recently, that games as a whole are beginning to lose touch with what they are supposed to be. And that we, as the consumers of their product, are beginning to forget why we consume their product. I'll get into my reasoning and thoughts in a bit, but first, a thought experiment. Answer the questions honestly.

Do you play video games? Yes? Good. Do you know WHY you play video games? Is it for the story? Is it for the competition? Is it for the spectacle? Take a moment and really think WHY it is you play games.

I'm sure by this point you're all wondering "Why is Eric all srs business all of a sudden?" Well to tell you the truth, this is something that has been on my mind for a bit of time now, and I figured I'd finally get around to writing it. But first, let me tell you why I reached this conclusion.

A few months ago, I lost my xbox headset. Huge tragedy yes I know, and not satisfied with simply loaning my roommate's headset which, according to reports, barely worked, I decided to hop on Amazon and further abuse their free prime shipping with a brand spanking new xbox headset. Skipping over the more cheaply made and fragile official microsoft headsets, I decided on a slightly more robust, yet not overly gaudy Plantronics set. This was going to run me about 11 dollars. Not a big deal. I did however, have $20 promotional credit towards a video game related purchase sitting there that I had not yet used. Apparently Amazon took this purchase to mean that I wanted to use ALL of my promotional credit on an $11 mic. Finding no way around their forced spending, I decided to simply bite the bullet and buy myself a new game, or in this case, preorder. Yes I put money down for the much talked about Modern Warfare 3. Up until this point I had told myself that I wasn't going to buy this game, that i was going to be a battlefield 3 player through and through, that I wouldn't go back to Call of Duty after what it did to me in MW2, but like the cliche of an abused significant other I apparently am in the Lifetime channel TV Movie that is my life, I came crawling back. (Thanks Amazon...you fuckers)

On that fateful day when MW3 arrived, I opened the packaging and tore through the single player campaign. I'm not going to do an in depth review here, but suffice it to say, it's clear that to them, the story was just a vestigial end that needed tying up. So naturally, single player missions completed, I hopped onto the multiplayer. Yes it felt like the Modern Warfare 2 that I knew and loved, but somehow, less shitty. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but things seemed to be going pretty well. But this comfort and satisfaction was short lived to say the least.

Exactly one week after MW3's release, the bullshit began. The noscoping, the trick shots, the button pictures in the clan tags circumventing the swear filters childishly spelling out words like "anal", "fart" and once, a horrifically sad attempt at "queer". Like a greasy meal at a disgusting diner, all of my contempt and hatred for the series came flooding back in one horrific wave. I remembered everything I hated about the game, everything I hated about its fans, and everything I hated about Xbox live.

It was about at this point that I realized that, playing call of duty for me, was no longer about having fun. I did not play the game to have fun. I played the game to have a bigger numerical e-penis than the fuckstick 13 year old that was constantly calling me a "fucking gay ass fag" for killing him a couple too many times that last match. The fun isn't in the game anymore, the fun is in the stats, the fun is in gloating to all your friends that you have a 2.0 kill/death ratio in a game in which you are a digital soldier running around an enclosed space killing other digital soldiers. In other words, it's FUCKING MEANINGLESS.

And that's when it hit me. Games are losing touch with their intended purpose. What's that purpose you ask? Well that's to provide entertainment, to be FUN. We play games because they're meant to be FUN. Say what you want about escapism, about telling a proper story, about character development, it doesn't matter, the underlying purpose is FUN, and I can't help but believe that the industry at large has lost sight of that fact.

A while back, I played a game called Bulletstorm. It was developed by a tiny studio called People Can Fly and produced by masters of the brown and grey palette, Epic Studios. It generally flew under the radar, didn't make any kind of real splash in the market, and nobody was really talking about it (hipster status get). But, intrigued by the notion of skillshots, I downloaded the demo. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I played that demo. So I decided to spring for the full game, and it was worth every penny in my mind. This was a stupid purchase in the minds of many. It was an 8-10 hour campaign with only a co-op multiplay that nobody was playing, so why did I feel that paying 60 bucks for a game with no replayability was a good investment? Because I had fun with it. The entire notion of adding up points for killing in new and creative ways, trying to chain together combinations of tricks and gathering multipliers was childish, inane, gruesome and every bit as fun as I had hoped it would be. I had more fun with that game than I had being called a cock loving ass clown by the hick from kansas whom I had just killed in MW3 all for the sake of being able to tell my friends that I have a 1.39 KDR as if that means something.

But this isn't the studios faults entirely. The fact of the matter is, this is what we wanted. MW3 is simply a victim of the times. From the impotent 5 hour campaign to the incessant stat tracking, THIS is the future we imagined for ourselves and THIS is what we got. Could this be the harbinger of things to come? Hopefully not. Certainly not if Bethesda, the makers of Skyrim keep doing what they're doing. And I can tell you right now that between Just Cause 2 and Saints Row The Third (which produced the best teaser trailer I've EVER seen), I will have plenty of physics breaking, madcap fun to distract myself from how much I hate everything and everyone when I play MW3.

The fact of the matter is, we have plenty of numbers in our every day lives that we can use to make ourselves feel superior to the lowly peons and assholes around us, be it test scores, GPA, paycheck, home value, number of people slept with or even just height. Why do we need another?

...And that's what I learned today. Well not today...like...last week...but you know...whatever.

...The state of politics in this country is a sad affair...

This blog post is thanks to my cool, gay (soon to be ex :( ) room mate James.

Firstly, I want you to skim this article. Go on, I'll wait.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/11/01/Chick_fil_A_Gave_Nearly_2M_to_Antigay_Groups_Just_in_2009/

All set? Good.

Now I'm sure the first thing you're thinking of right now is "Oh that's horrible, I can't believe a fast food chain would do such a thing! I love gay people! They're great! I'm never going to eat Chick-fil-A ever again!" or perhaps even something like "Go figure...the south is at it again..."

And that is all well and good, but I'd like to draw your attention in a slightly different direction. This isn't about southerners, this isn't about the definition of traditional marriage or gay rights or any of that political nonsense. (Not to say it's not important, that's just not the kind of blog this is....all serious 'n shit...)

No lets focus on the fact that a company is making donations to anti-gay foundations...a company...that is primarily concerned...with the production and sale...of fried...fucking...chicken...

Am I the only one seeing something wrong with this? Yes I understand that it is nothing new for companies to donate to charities and that many companies take part in this practice. I mean even McDonalds has that little donation box thing near their registers that gives your unwanted pocket change to a charity which apparently prides itself in building freakishly colorful Kremlin building replicas in other parts of the world. It's not the donating thing that gets to me...Do me a favor, go back to the beginning of that article again...go ahead...I'll wait.

Did you read that first sentence? No? Fine I'll copy it here. It says:

"The Georgia-based fast-food chain Chick-fil-A has never hid its conservative leanings"

I'm sorry but what? A fast food company can have "conservative leanings?" How the fuck does that work? THEY MAKE GODDAMN FRIED CHICKEN. I don't know about you, but I don't really like the people who make FUCKING FRIED CHICKEN to tell me what is morally right or not.

And it's at this point that we start to get to the root of the issue. The problem here is corporations meddling with political affairs. Companies should concern themselves with the issues around their company. In this case, Chick-fil-A should really be focusing on the product they make (fried chicken), their customer base (mall-goers), their operations (acquiring cutting edge fried chicken technologies), and their locations (that super hot location between the Sbarro and that generic place that sells "cajun food", usually called "Big Easy", "Cajun Grill", or "Down in N'Orleans we eat this shit all day but if you eat it you'll shit your brains out for a week"). The last thing that a FRIED CHICKEN COMPANY should be concerning themselves with is who their next door neighbor is marrying or what the definition of family is.

Maybe this is all just me. Maybe I grew up during a time where companies didn't meddle with the political goings on (or perhaps I was just too concerned with pokemon and picking my nose to notice/care). But the fact is, there should be no reason that a corporation should have political leanings of any kind, conservative, liberal or otherwise. A corporation should concern itself with one thing, and that is their product. I don't give a fuck if the CEO of that company donates to whatever charity or organization he or she wants, that is their right as an American no matter how much I personally disagree with the motive of the organization they donate to (though donating to an organization that has been classified as a Hate Group ain't right). So here's a quick pro-tip Chick-fil-A. If you spent nearly as much money donating to disallowing gays to marry as you did improving your chicken recipe, maybe...JUST MAYBE...you'd be able to find some semblance of success up here in the North East and finally breach that ever coveted top 10 spot that you can't seem to grasp. KFC doesn't tell me what to do or think and so far as I can tell, they're still beating your asses in the rankings, so suck on those 11 secret herbs and spices.

...And that's what I learned today...

PS: In case you were wondering, Chipotle would seek looser immigration laws, Subway would support legislation stating that tessellating cheese triangles is punishable by law, White Castle would look to legalize pot, Wendy's is a firm activist for women's equality in the work place (as well as a major backer for Gingers' rights) and Burger King is looking to reorganize our government into a Parliamentary Monarchy, headed by none other than the king himself.

...I have lots of first world problems...

Chief amongst them is neglecting my blog. Oh hi, yes I know you still exist and that you probably don't care about this anymore, but that's not going to stop me from spewing my self-righteous gibberish into the intertubes.

Quite a few things have happened since I last posted, so I guess I finally have more things to talk about at least for a little while. So why don't we just take a quick run-down of things going on in my life. And yes I'll be getting back the aforementioned topic of this post in a little bit.

First and foremost, I reached a huge milestone in my life, realized a goal that has ever sat in the corners of my mind. I have finally built a gaming computer. Now many of you readers out there (who aren't gamers in the strictest sense) are wondering "how is that at all significant in any way, shape or form?" Well dear readers, the fact of the matter is, this is something that I have been thinking and talking about doing since I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL. (Back when most kids were just hoping for more money to fund their Neopets addictions, I was thinking BIG.)

This whole gaming addiction started back when I was young. Back in the day, my parents were pretty controlling about TV usage (remember how we didn't get cable until I was in college? Yeah.) and I was typically tied up with my extended day program in elementary school, so it didn't leave much time for me to watch what few cartoons I had access to at the time. But one day, my cousin sent me back his old game system from Taiwan. It was a Chinese NES clone that had a single cart which could play something to the tune of 80 DIFFERENT NES games. I played a TON of them without even knowing what they were or what system I was playing. I played Mario, Excite Bike, Elevator Action, Baseball, Penguin Adventure and even Battle Tanks (complete with a level editor!).

But my favorite of all time was Contra.

(For those of you who feel like waxing nostalgic for a bit here, throw on the Jungle Jam music on youtube for this next section).

The cheap little Chinese knock off cart that I was playing on had every possible permutation of Contra, complete with the 30 lives konami cheat preloaded. I loved that game. Can't say why or how, perhaps it was because it was the first game I ever beat (with the help of my cousin...and the 30 lives cheat...SHUT UP I WAS FUCKING 7). That was what started this addiction in me. This eternal lust for all things gaming was furthered along by the afterschool program's decision to buy a Sega Genesis to allow us kids to play on. This was my exposure to all things Sega. From Sonic and Sonic 2, to Aladdin and even Ecco The Dolphin, I was a genius. (By which I mean I could get past the first level). Children from all around flocked to watch me work my magic. Even the children after me opted to let me take their turn so they could catch a rare glimpse into Marble Zone Act 2. Vacation weeks were especially wondrous for me. This same program held a special vacation week for school vacations full of field trips to the roller rink and Disney on Ice shows. There were movies and snacks and it was a wonderful time. But I was more interested in the Super Nintendo they had. This was an area of gaming that I had no idea about. All I knew was the controller made different things on the screen do different stuff, and that was enough for me.

Eventually playing these weren't enough. I eventually begged and pleaded my parents for a Game Boy. They said it would kill my eyes and I'd go blind, but I begged and begged. Finally one christmas, I got my very own Game Boy Pocket. It was bright yellow and glorious. I kept that thing in immaculate condition and fed it a constant stream of triple A batteries. I fought my way through Zelda: Link's Awakening, got retro with Super Mario Lands 1 AND 2, and beat the Elite 4 at least four dozen times in Pokemon Blue. Then the school banned game boys in all forms. So my nerd-dom took off in new directions. Magic the Gathering, pokemon cards, Dungeons and Dragons, Pogs, Crazy Bones everything.

Finally I made it to middles school. Thoroughly indoctrinated in nerd lore, steeped in geek culture and infused with dorky tendencies, I got involved with the hitherto undiscovered world of PC games. Prior to this point, I was running a Mac LC520 and playing freeware games and rocking the shit out of space blaster and number muncher. But it wasn't until the middle school started a fundraiser by having us sell magazines that I realized what gaming truly was. In case your school didn't run these kinds of fundraisers, the gist is that you go around and annoy your neighbors, parents, parents' coworkers and extended family, trying to sell them magazine subscriptions which you could then trade in for points which you could use to buy stupid bullshit prizes like "SPY SUNGLASSES" that had SUPER AWESOME REAR VIEW MIRRORS TO SEE WHO IS "FOLLOWING" YOU! I used this opportunity to buy myself (and by buy myself, I mean make my parents buy) a subscription to PC Gamer.

The stuff I saw in that magazine entranced me. I wanted all of it. I had to have all of it, play all of it. The colors, the graphics, 3D! Words couldn't describe how badly I wanted to get my hands on these games. I wanted, no needed to play Starcraft, Oddworld, Half Life, Doom, EVERYTHING. But my computer at the time couldn't handle any of them. Thus started my desire for a properly built gaming PC. I didn't know anything about computers or how they worked, I just knew that the higher the numbers were, the better it was and the more expensive it was. So I stared at the Alienware and Falcon Northwest ads with envy, wanting it all. I even remember a time when, in middle school, we were given the task to furnish our dream room (probably as a lesson on looking shit up on the internet, I don't remember...) Given a budget of a few thousand dollars, we were told to look up prices and figure out how much items cost and to stay under our budget. Needless to say, I factored in my would be new computer into this mix. Sure I wanted a TV and I needed a bed and the like, but I found ways to cut costs there (I bought a futon so that I didn't need BOTH a sofa AND a bed). Every spare dollar I had was spent into customizing my very own Alienware Area 51 desktop, complete with lights and glass side panel.

All of this was eventually sidelined by the acquisition of my N64 and eventually my PS2 and later my Xbox 360. From the moment that N64 entered my house, I was a console gamer through and through. Everything else pretty much fell by the wayside. I realized that the constant fight with PC required specs was a losing battle and that I should just stick with the relative simplicity of console gaming. Recently though, I began entertaining the idea of building that computer again. And now that I could (barely) afford it, I finally decided to dive in head first (leaving my bank account significantly lighter than before).

So at this point, all of you are probably wondering what this has to do with first world problems, (especially those of who you DIDN'T BOTHER READING MY IN DEPTH AND HEARTFELT RECOUNT OF MY DESCENT INTO THE DEPTHS OF NERDDOM.) Well to put it simply, I'm finding that I need to prioritize in a way I never had to in the past. Let me make a list of things on my to do list right now. (In no particular order)

1) Buy Curtains

2) Buy Groceries

3) Beat Batman Arkham City

4) Play Battlefield 3

5) Beat Battlefield 3's single player

4) Re-rank myself in Starcraft 2

5) Get better at Team Fortress 2

6) Begrudgingly give Modern Warfare 3 a shot (because Amazon forced me to)

7) Improve my Minecraft fortress (and find even more goddamn diamonds)

9) Go to the damn gym more

10) Play Gears 2 AND THEN Gears 3.

And that's just the top 10 items...there's also Just Cause 2, finishing The Hunger Games, starting Catching Fire, figuring out when I'm going to buy Skyrim (because lets be honest, I'm GOING to play it) and getting better at drafting MTG (among quite a number of other things I forgot to mention...you know like continuing to update this blog...).

So what's my first world problem? I've got too many fucking video games to play through and not enough time to play through them (because I work).

That's my first world problem du jour.

...And that's what I learned today.

PS If you're not a gamer and didn't like this post, too fucking bad. If you REALLY want me to write about something you want to hear about, why don't you suggest something on TILT's facebook group? https://www.facebook.com/pages/Today-I-Learned-That-TILT/133134800089942

...Some concepts just aren't theme park material...

Theme parks are an interesting concept to me. No where else will you find such flagrant milking of a piece of intellectual property. The simple fact is that, if you have a moderately successful IP, be it a movie, book or tv show, if there is a theme park tribute to it, not only is it officially a successful business endeavor, but your producers/publishing companies believe that there is still money to be made off of it by luring tourists into a fiberglass world full of falsehoods and facades (both literally AND figuratively LOLOLOLOLOLOL). That said though, I do love the shit out of my theme parks and roller coasters. In fact, just a few weeks ago I spent three days and an exorbitant amount of money at Universal pretending I was a wizard right there with the soccer moms and their 12 year olds. (yes that's right, given the opportunity I would have dueled every kid I found and probably just defaulted to the killing curse because I like winning and they should have seen it coming from someone with a giant fuck-off skull on the end of their wand and a slytherin patch in his hand)

That said, I like to believe that there is a certain limit to what kinds of intellectual properties can get turned into theme park attractions. In fact, it's generally safe to say that most non-kid-friendly IPs (or at least IPs that most sane human beings figured their kids have already watched behind their backs on HBO while they were out to dinner) are perfectly safe for family consumption. So that said, the most hardcore thing you'll find at a theme park (besides a few seriously awesome roller coasters) are based around things that are strictly PG13 (Jaws, The Mummy, that fucking holy land thing...you know...somewhat childish fiction). So naturally something like Pookie the pedophile bear's adventures in touchy-feely land really wouldn't be considered for theme park material. (Though I have to admit, the nightmarish Doctor Seuss land they have a Islands of adventure does come fucking close to that level of creepy)

Well color me surprised when I heard that Eli Roth of Hostel fame would be designing a theme park exhibit for Hollywood's iteration of Universal Studios. Now Hostel, in case you didn't know, falls into the niche genre of movies delightfully known as torture porn (or gore porn). For those of you who are still with me and who still don't know what I'm talking about, whatever you're thinking it stands for is probably, if not definitely, accurate. In retrospect, Hostel was an interesting movie insofar as I realize now that it could be a litmus test for normality on whomever you choose to watch it with. Act one of the small art-house film that was Hostel takes place in...you guessed it...a hostel somewhere in Europe (the exact locale escapes me and I'm too lazy to google it so you'll just have to deal with it). And in typical teen summer movie fashion, there were more boobs than you could shake a stick at. But beyond the near soft-core porn levels of nudity, there was little to no horror (or gore, or torture...just porn). No all of the blood and guts were saved solely for the second act. No lead up. No justification. No suspense. Just a smash cut to a torture chamber where our previously scantily clad young male and female leads (if you could REALLY call them that) were being cut on by psychopathic eurotrash with far too many power tools and surgical equipment. Why did I say this would be a good litmus test for your friends? Well put it this way. For the average teenage boy (because this kind of movie should attract pretty much no other demographic) 45 minutes of straight nudity should, in any healthy teenage boy, cause him to stir in his shorts. (And before you jump down my throat about the heteronormativity of that statement, there were plenty of shirtless guys too, so calm the fuck down). Suffice it to say, after flipping the switch from sex to death, if any of your buddies is still rocking his hard on, it's probably best to avoid talking to them from now on....just saying.

Anyways back to the point (heh heh boners...) of this piece, SOMEONE with a LOT of money got it in his head (and I say his because again as with the vanity plates issue, no self respecting female would ever think this idea up) that this halloween, they should open a special section of the park just for Eli Roth himself to design a tribute to his glorious contribution to film, Hostel. That's right, this halloween, if you're in the hollywood area, you two can feel the sheer terror of bored rich Europeans chaining you to a chair and burning your face off with a blow torch. No really I don't understand how these people expect to pull ANY of this off. The entire POINT of the movie was that youth hostels are kinda creepy and that Europeans are prone to kidnapping and torturing unsuspecting teenagers that are trying only to bring a bit of money to their obviously destitute countries (because I mean really...if Europe had...y'know...like...ANY money...they'd...like...be able to renovate all those silly castles...amirite?). And that said, unless there are actors who are paid to randomly grab toursits as the pass through this "horror maze" only to horribly maim and ultimately kill them while their friends gawk gormlessly wondering where their buddy got all that super real looking (and tasting) fake blood, then this maze feels like it's going to miss the mark somewhere.

Ultimately, if the point of a theme park is to make one feel as though they are a part of whatever movie or book it is based off of, I for will will accept nothing less than 45 minutes of girls jumping around shirtless followed by being tortured and killed for the next 45 minutes. Because that is the only way they can claim ANY kind of immersion into the Hostel IP.

Come to think of it...you remember how I said that you could tell if your friends were fucked in the head if they were still pitching a tent into the second act? This kind of attraction will probably only attract THOSE types. Do not want.

...And that's what I learned today.

(PS That's actually the justification for the whole movie [SPOILER ALERT]. It's all just rich bored Europeans who pay the kidnappers money so that they can "legally" kill another person...THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING )

(PPS Did anyone else reading that castles bit do it in a dumb blonde/valley girl accent in their head?)

...Duke Nukem should have stayed dead...

Lets start off with a few ground rules here. If you're reading this, you've likely already formed your opinions on Duke Nukem Forever. Most gamers will fall into one of two categories. The first of these groups will be the gamers that played Duke Nukem back in the day and have been looking to this day much the same way as crazily-religious folks were looking forward to the rapture. The remainder of you will likely fall into the "I never really played it, so there isn't any real nostalgia factor here for me" group. And since my gaming CV didn't really start until the N64, (and it was heavily regulated until halfway through my PS2 ownership cycle), naturally I never really played much Duke Nukem, which places me firmly in that latter group. I will state again for the record, that you have already likely formulated your opinions about this game and nothing I say will change how you feel, but feel free to read on and maybe you’ll be able to see the game through the dark smoky tint of my cynical, hateful eyes.

I agree with Yahtzee that Duke Nukem Forever was a game that could (and probably should) have been shat out by any halfway decent studio in an incredibly short period of time. And I don’t remember what production cycles were like back then. But looking at a game like Half Life, they came out with Half-Life, Opposing Forces AND Blue Shift within 3 years. That’s one super hit game and two full length add-ons in a matter of 3 years. Compared to the 15 fucking years it took to make Duke Nukem Forever (DNF HAHAHAHA GET IT? IT’S LIKE THE ACRONYM FOR DID NOT FINISHLTROLOLOLOLOLOL), the legendary “valve time” seems like fucking nothing at this point. But, intrigued and perturbed by the prospect of getting a playable demo of Duke Nukem, I decided to give it a shot and see what it was all about.

Yes I already knew the critics were lambasting the game, crucifying it for not being the second coming of Christ in video game form. But I, being the impartial, unbiased, objective paragon of critical quality that I am, decided to give the game a shot just to be fair to it. Well needless to say, even having not held my breath for 15 years for this game, I was still somehow sorely disappointed. Rife with piss a shit jokes, the demo certainly kept the immature tone of the original works. The very beginning of the demo started with Duke peeing into a urinal (as a quicktime event). Naturally, Duke is not known for his silent stoicism, and as such, takes every opportunity to speak. This gave me the strange and somewhat uneasy feeling that I was actually controlling another person against their will (as opposed to most other games where the protagonists do us all the favor of keeping their fucking mouths shut). This was most prescient when I, as allowed by the game, forced Duke to pick a large turd out of the toilet and fling it around the locker room. Quite frankly, his protests of "why am I doing this?" only made me want to continue, cackling with glee the way one would imagine an evil puppeteer would. Finally growing weary of that nonsense (and with the vast majority of flat surfaces now stained with digital feces) I exited the locker room to find some NPCs dressed in military wear, discussing a fight with a large alien that had taken up residence on the football field outside. After a brief mechanic where Duke (again through quicktime type events) draws up a battle plan (with markers that actually leave no visible mark on the white board), I could only conclude that not only did Duke suffer from some kind of massive psychosis that not only causes him to believe that someone else is controlling him, but similarly, he hallucinates drawings marks on a whiteboard.

Well after a good deal of faffing about, Dicktits McGee wanders out into the hallway only to watch a few unnamed soldiers get destroyed by....something. After guiding the addlebrained ape through a series of corridors and picking up something called a "devastator", I rise up onto the field via an unexplained (and entirely impractical) elevator to confront my foe. The thing is hard to describe. But suffice it to say, it is ugly and shoots missiles. Well I will give it one thing, it doesn't suffer from the "glowing-weak-point-shoot-me-here" syndrome that some other games fall into. That said, it also means that would-be boss battle was BEYOND easy. It charges, I move and shoot at it. I run out of ammo, go pick some up, dodge missiles, shoot at it. Rinse. Repeat. After probably 15 minutes of this drool inducing bullshit, the monster goes down and Duke kicks its eye through the field goal posts. Cue American flag, title and fireworks. So far, so cliche.

Zoom out of the TV and Duke is playing the game about himself while two likely illegal school girls finish up their...homework.... They crack a joke about how the game "had better be good after fifteen fucking years of waiting" as the girls wipe their mouths. Suddenly, I find myself in a monster truck, nuclear logo plastered on every surface dodging helicopters dropping bombs on me. And that is as far as I got. I'm sure there was a joke somewhere in there about a shitty vehicle section or what have you, but I just was not in the mood. I'm sorry Duke, but you put a fucking vehicle section in your goddamn demo?! You must either be seriously stupid or just not give a flying fuck to do something like that. A shitty vehicle section is not something you show off when you are trying to wow customers into buying your game. A shitty vehicle section is something you surprise and dismay your customers with AFTER they've bought the game, much like herpes or a cajun demon baby.

I am all for a game that is over the top. I loved the hell out of Bulletstorm and its unending torrent of dick jokes. And a game that is aware of how bad it is generally manages to endear itself to me much like Nick Cage's entire repertoir. However something about this game feels dated and out of place...even after a game like Bulletstorm. It feels childish and old, immature and crude, but somehow misses the nostalgia mark completely. Duke is ultimately an aging relic of games past, and ultimately, was only kept fond in memory. And that's where he deserved to stay. Bringing back the Duke was the one thing they could have done to destroy the franchise completely, and they did it. In the end, I feel bad for everyone who bought the game for nostalgia's sake, because the utter disappointment of this game could only be comparable to hiring a hooker to come to your house, only to find out that not only is she packing a rod of her own, but hers is bigger than yours.

Duke should have stayed dead.

...And that's what I learned today.