PS4 round-up

One week into the PS4. No one who bought it at our store has had any technical problems, so either 1. our customers are smarter than the average bear, 2. the failure reports are overblown, or 3. both. (We had a ton of people when the Wii U launched who turned it off while it was updating and then didn't understand why it stopped working. USER ERROR USER ERROR USER ERROR)

Friend of the blog Ms. Susan Strong picked up her PS4 at my store, but she wasn't going to be able to make it until after midnight, so in exchange for booze and eggnog, my dad took her gift cards and came in before midnight to finalize payment. He waited patiently among the mega-nerds until he reached my register, at which point he yelled:

"DO YOU HAVE ANY GAMES FOR THE ATARI 2600!?"

#shitmydadsays 

On parents who buy Grand Theft Auto for their tiny children

I hate Kotaku.

I hate everyone who reads Kotaku.

I hate it every time someone mentions to me something they read on Kotaku.

The Veteran is always texting me links to Kotaku articles he thinks I'll enjoy. (And, ok, I usually do enjoy them as long as there aren't any naked people, but I still hate Kotaku.) I mentioned this to Awesome Sauce, and he started sending me Kotaku links all the time, too.

So, what happens when there's some breaking video game news that I would be interested in?

The day it was announced that Tales of Xillia 2 was coming to the U.S., this is how my morning went:

First, I get a text from Awesome Sauce, saying "Hey, Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S."

About five minutes later, The Veteran texts me a link to a Kotaku article about how Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S.

I walk into work, and bossbro greets me with a "Hey, Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the U.S.!"

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE, GENTLEMEN, BUT I THINK I CAN HANDLE IT.

All of the above is to highlight the extreme reluctance with which I am posting a link to a Kotaku article that was recommended to me by AsS:

I Sold Too Many Copies of GTA V to Parents who Didn't Give a Damn.

The other day I mass-texted everyone I know:

"I'm really tired of explaining to parents that Grand Theft Auto is basically softcore porn."

"Just write those exact words on a sign," my friend Wolfie* wrote back.

But seriously.


The list of warnings on the back of GTA is ridiculously long. Blood! Gore! Extreme violence! Strong language! Nudity! Strong sexual content! Mature themes! Whenever I read through it for a parent who's in the store with a ten-year-old kid, they yawn and wave me through.

"You literally torture a guy. You waterboard a guy on screen."

"He's already seen all that stuff on TV." (What the hell is your kid watching!?)

"You own and manage a strip club."

"WHAT!?"

Extreme violence hasn't fazed a single person. But the minute you mention the boobies, everyone freaks out. And even then, they still want to buy the game, so we encourage them to flip through the strategy guide and see the screenshots.

And even then, literally only one person ever has opted not to buy the game at my store since the release.

Without fail, every time I start mentioning the extreme violence and sexytimes, all of these people ask:

"They can put that stuff in a game!?"

"It's not designed for kids," I say, every time. "The average gamer is in their 30s. And the people who played the original Grand Theft Auto are in their 40s now."

I think some people hear the word "game" and immediately assume "children's toy." People who ramble about games like Grand Theft Auto V ruining kids are missing the point that there are games that are not meant to be played by children. After all, it's impossible to get access to an R-rated movie or an M-rated game without parental consent.

If you buy something that says "Strong Sexual Content" on the packaging, you should also be prepared for your child to come up and you asking what "pimps" and "hos" are.

I understand that children are different, and what's appropriate for one child might not be for another. I played Grand Theft Auto III when I was ten, and I turned out ok. It was my 17-years-old-at-the-time-now-he's-old brother's game, and I would play it when he wasn't around. I would drive around in the cars and follow traffic laws. I was a well-read child, with two older siblings, and I wasn't unaware of the existence of sex workers, nor was I ever really taught to demean or dehumanize them, so I wasn't confused or bothered by what was going on.

Extreme torture, though? That would even bother me now. There were several parts in my first playthrough of Borderlands 2, which I loved, where I had to stop playing because it was too intense. (Maybe I'll write a post about that someday.) And that's sci-fi/fantasy, not true crime. And I'm almost 25 years old.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has been about pushing limits, both in game design and in storytelling, for years. It's supposed to be edgy and controversial. And even if you find the story trite and silly (ahem), you can't deny that GTA is a poster franchise for Games As A Grown-Up, Edgy Storytelling Medium.

Controversial entertainment isn't typically accessible or appropriate for kids.

For example, this one time, a dad and a little boy, no older than six or seven, came in looking for a game.

"He likes playing Grand Theft Auto at his uncle's house, but we don't want to buy it for him, so we're looking for something similar but not as... bad," said the dad. "He likes having a big open city to run around in."

"Ok," I said. "How about Batman: Arkham City? You have a pretty open area to explore, and it's Batman, so you still get to beat up bad guys."

"Does that sound interesting?" the dad asked the kid. And the kid immediately turned to me, and asked, with a perfectly serious face:

"Does Batman shoot cops?"

I was so taken aback by the question that I just squeaked out:

"Batman doesn't shoot anybody."

Kids who play games like Grand Theft Auto are, at best, the equivalent of a kid bragging about how he watched all the Saw movies and didn't get scared, and at worst, miniature sociopaths who like to shoot cops, with a lot of poorly delivered sex ed in between.

Please, people. Listen when some bitter, disillusioned register jockey is telling you that what you're purchasing might be a bit too much for your kid.

Because when you're furious that your 8-year-old suddenly knows the meanings and usage of a dozen different racial slurs and the term "Dirty Sanchez," well, you've got nothing to blame but your own hands-off parenting. 

*My only friend who had the decency to already have an internet alias before I started blogging. Seriously, my funny nickname muscle is tired. 

One more step towards the Video Game Olympics

Apparently, the United States government is recognizing professional League of Legends players as athletes, for the purpose of obtaining visas to participate in competitions here in the States. I wouldn't consider video games a "sport" in the traditional sense, but since we don't have a great legal framework yet for international gaming competitions, I'd say this is a good stopgap measure.

It also led me to search for how you obtain a visa for a chess competition, since those have been going on for forever. Generally, for the U.S. at least, it seems like you're just expected to get a regular old travel visa. But, lo and behold, chess is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee. 

This entire post is only here so I can tell everyone that my dad is a professional athlete.

My life

I just found an e-mail my brother sent me that I missed. All it had was a link to the following image, and the text:

"You."

A Craig Would Be So Happy meme. "If I could just get a job where I didn't have to deal with customers, I would be so happy."

Today is my mom's 60th birthday

Since we've established that I got the gamer gene from my father, astute and interested readers may be wondering what I inherited from my mother.

ANSWER: My mom is an artist!

But, you know, a real one. With degrees and everything. As opposed to a dry erase board one.

My mom can make literally anything you could come up with using some combination of paint, fabric, thread, yarn, cardboard, and common household materials. (She can even make her own clothes! And they're sexy!) I mean, check out this painting she did of the entrance to my first apartment:

A painting of my first apartment. MATERIALS: Watercolors, motherly love

"Wow," you might be saying. "What a cute little first apartment." FALSE. My first apartment was a total shithole. The entrance was on the side of a decrepit old house on a college campus. All that concrete you're seeing was a creepy alleyway filled with old plastic chairs. For fuck's sake, the fire escape was directly above the door, and she even left that part in. But here it looks so cute! Because my mom has magical powers.

Every creative impulse I have comes from my mom. She's even the one who wanted me to start a gamer blog. Well, technically, she wanted me to write a book, and told me not to "waste my talent on the internet." But hey, if I did everything my mom told me to, my life would look pretty different. 

One thing (of many) my mom and I really don't see eye-to-eye on is video games, despite the fact that my parents have spent thousands of dollars on them by this point. That's ok, because she was too busy being a craft wizard and supermom.

Old age, however, is the perfect time to discover video games!

When asked what she wants for her 60th birthday, my mom always says, "a trip to Paris." Well, obviously, if I had Paris money, I wouldn't be working at a shitty video game store. You know what can take you to Paris, though?

(HINT: The answer is video games.)

Let's take a look at some video games that take place entirely or partially in France.

Remember Me. Technically, it takes place in "Neo-Paris," because it's the future and stuff. Remember Me is also the name of a crappy Robert Pattinson movie. I am not talking about the crappy Robert Pattinson movie.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Look at the cute raccoon, mom!! He's wearing a hat!

Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War. Does 15th century France still count?

And that's just scratching the surface! There are dozens of World War II games set in France, and most racing games have a Paris level. What if we expanded our criteria to include games with French titles, or games made by French developers? Helloooo, Beyond: Two Souls, starring Willem Dafoe!

Seriously. You know where to find me. Have your people call my people. French video games. Gonna be awesome.

In any case, the point is, without my mom, this could never have happened:

Dry-erase Jeff Goldblum strikes again!

The world owes my mother a great debt.

Happy birthday, mom! Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

That pretty much means you can just do whatever you want.

P.S. I love you.

P.P.S. My mom watched and genuinely enjoyed the movie P.S. I Love You, because she is a dork.

Borderlands 20 Questions

My brother and I have been entertaining ourselves by playing 20 Questions via text. They're pretty much always obscure Borderlands characters, because obviously.

You're welcome, readers, for this glimpse into the life and times of Miss Blog Lady:

"Is it a person?"

"Yes."

"Is it a human?"

"Yes."

"Is this person fictional?"

"Yes."

"Is this person from a video game?"

"Yes."

"Was the game released on the Xbox 360?"

"Yes."

"Does this person live on Pandora?"

"Yes."

"Is this person a playable character?"

"No."

"Does this person appear exclusively in the expansions?"

"No."

"Is this person alive at the end of Borderlands 2?"

"Maybe."

"Does the player have the option of killing this person?"

"Yes."

"Is the person a bandit?"

"Yes."

"Does this person want you to shoot him in the face?"

"You know? I'm pretty sure he does."

"FACE MCSHOOTY!?!?!?"

 

Goddamn, I love Face McShooty, and also beating my brother at 20 Questions.

Video transcript after the jump.

The internet's new chess authority

Somebody legit found their way to this blog by googling "chess board setup."

Remember, kids: white on the right!

An addendum to a previous post

So, my dad finally read my blog. (He's a little behind the times.) He read all of my blog, including the post about his birthday. And after reading my whole blog, he pointed out that all of the chess pictures I uploaded had boards that had been set up wrong.

"Apparently, there are people out there who will spend $500,000 on a chess set without knowing how to set it up," he said. Honestly, I'm mostly just amazed that he could see the board under that diamond-studded monstrosity.

To correct my contribution to the ongoing problem of people not knowing how to set up chess games, I am now uploading this helpful diagram:

A chess board set-up, from an instructional article in Reader's Digest Asia.

Holy shit, I learned how to do captions!

The important thing is that when you face the chess board, the bottom right square should be a light-colored square. Remember, kids: white on the right!

Just kidding. Every chess game should look like this:

A tiny smattering of white pieces facing a huge onslaught of black pieces, with the text: "THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAA!!!" Totally epic, except that they forgot to put white on the right.

Today is my dad's 60th birthday

My father happens to be a ranked master in some sort of old-timey augmented reality turn-based strategy game called "chess."

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A chess set. You need a ton of accessories to get started, but they're all universal and not too expensive. Unless you get the set pictured above, which is diamond studded and costs $500,000.]

When I was little and required constant supervision, my dad would sit me in a high chair and make me watch him practice his chess moves. When I was slightly less little, I enjoyed stealing the pieces and having play-time adventures with the "horsies." When I got way older, I'd brag about my father's mad chess skills in order to pick up dudes.

Ok, that last part was made up. But I really did play a lot of chess as a kid.

[A baby playing chess. This is not a picture of me, though there are plenty of me playing chess in my baby book. This is a stock photo I linked from an article about raising baby geniuses. There are plenty of pictures of non-model kids playing chess on Google too, though, which makes me think this is a weirdly common parenting method.]

The point is, my dad gave me the gamer gene. (I just barely missed the Trekkie gene. My brother got that one.) I'm grateful to have it, because gaming is awesome, even if it's more than a little different from what it was in the 70s when my dad got started in his chess career. He stopped humoring my attempts to get him to play Nintendo with me when I was about five, and I've never really waded into the hot mess that is chess video games.

[Box art from the GBC installment of ChessMaster. My dad totally had this game on PC. He also kind of looks like The ChessMaster, or will in a few years. Incidentally, did you know that chess masters are actually wizards? Famous chess masters: Gandalf, Dumbledore, my dad]

Thanks, dad, for giving me gaming, and also for apparently turning me into a baby genius via baby chess, according to internet parenting advice.

My father has an intense aversion to all technological advancements more recent than the VCR. (No, seriously, he just got his first Facebook today.) But the internet has given the world two things that he just loves: ranty blogs, and memes. I've already got a ranty blog, but in honor of my daddy's 60th birthday, here is a chess-themed LOLcat:

[A cat hitting a chess piece with his foot. "Im on ur chess board pwning u at chess." Hahahahaha! That's so silly! Cats don't play chess! And they can't spell!]

Aw, heck, here's one more:

[A tabby kitten playing Invizible Chess. Hahahahaha! Cats don't play chess! That's what people do!]

And another:

[A cat lounging on top of a chess board, with pieces strewn everywhere. "Checkmate." Hahahahaha! Oh, cats. You are incorrigible.]

Happy Birthday, pops! Here's to another 60 years! Just kidding, that's biologically impossible. Go eat some birthday cake.

An addendum to a previous post

Today, my brother called me.

"So," he said. "I was catching up on your blog."

"Cool," I said.

"I came across a post where you wrote, and I quote: "Incidentally, when the game first came out, my big brother assumed from the ads that not only was the game titled "Scrim," but that "Scrim" was also the name of the evil dragon. LOL THE DRAGON'S NAME IS ALDUIN OMG BROTHERS ARE DUMB"."

"Yeah, I wrote that," I said.

"Do you have another brother?" he asked.

"Nope," I said.

"'Cause I'm not dumb," he said.

I'd like to come out right now and clarify that my brother is not, in fact, dumb. Unlike our sister, who refuses to play video games because she "doesn't like buttons."