Daddy Gamer

There’s nothing that disgust me more than hearing a mouse-peep voice of a child playing online against grown adults. Profanity, bodily functions and other homo-erotic expletives abound in most online multiplayer war games such as Call of Duty 4. Of course, the “adults” in the online room gang-up on the child who, beyond the cuss-words, found it hard to put together a complete sentence to retaliate against the verbal attacks. I tried to make the others aware that they’re talking to a child. I asked, “Are you in eight grade?” The kid replied, “No. I’m in seventh.” Next thing you hear, “Go to school little boy!” I wondered where his parents were at 11 in the morning on a Tuesday.

Chris Kramer from Capcom asked me to check out this new trailer for their upcoming Street Fighter IV video game. He said the theme is water color and showcases the battle between Chun-Li and, the new Street Fighter character, Crimson Viper.

Message to Chris:

The visuals are stunning. Why not make a movie using this water color technique? Forget the actors and actresses for the movie. I’d be first in line to watch it. Guaranteed!

[Word on the street]

Some of the forums are already being critical about the game’s graphics as being two-dimensional. I beg to differ. From the gameplay I’ve seen, Street Fighter IV is far from being a 2D game. On the contrary, the animation and graphic style makes it less intimidating and more inviting to a majority of gamers like myself. I’d be more inclined to pick this game up because of it’s beauty and simplicity. I’m just hoping that the gameplay is up to par to the Street Fighter versions I’ve played in the past.

[Street Fighter IV gameplay]

$3.89 per gallon is killing me. My car gets 30 miles/gallon but that doesn’t help me. I’m just glad that I didn’t get the V8 Mustang that I was eyeing. That would have hurt even more. The traffic on interstate 680 or 580 or 880 won’t help either. I remember when gas prices were 75 cents a gallon back in the 80’s. I miss those days. My buddies and I would jump in my lawn-green hooptie, Datsun 510, drive around town, cruise on Castro Valley Boulevard, and let the car idle in the parking lot. I don’t think we’d be doing that today with these gas prices.

Then again, we didn’t have online gaming like we do today. Hours of World of Warcraft or Call of Duty 4 matches should wee away the time effectively. Less time cruising and driving to the malls means less money spent on fuel AND no CO2 emissions to our very delicate ozone layer. Dang it. I just gave WoW and multiplayer fan-boys another excuse to stay indoors. And this one is pretty good.

I can’t complain too much about Call of Duty 4. The in-game action is intense. The graphics are amazing. The gameplay is also very smooth. It’s definitely better than Call of Duty 3. But is it worth the $65?

If you have a lot of free-time, I can see the enjoyment of playing the different difficulties and also playing online multiplayer games. I was a fanatic Quake, Quake 3 and Counterstrike player. I use to spend 16 hours a day playing online multiplayer matches albeit death-match, team-play or clan match. As long as I had pizza and softdrinks, I was good to go. I can imagine playing multiplayer Call of Duty 4 can be ridiculously addicting.

Unfortunately for me, my free-gaming time has been dramatically reduced to stolen moments between work and home. Being a fan of first-person shooters, I found the time to squeeze in some COD4-time even if it was just the single-player campaign.

While the game is not boring, I was able to breezed through it rather easily. It could be due to my shooter-experience but it was too easy nonetheless. The modern weapons and armor in my arsenal allowed me to play duck-hunt against the enemy. In a couple of missions, I just used my pistol to get to the next checkpoint.

The content is graphic and violent. I could not play this game when my kids are around. But this is expected. Infinity Ward, the game’s developer, did a great job in immersing the player in both graphics, music and sound effects. As with previous Call of Duty versions, I felt as though as I’m in a war zone.

But I am ready for something new. New weapons and upgraded graphics are great but I like to get more meat in my war games.  Call of Duty 4 touched on a quick back-story but failed to deliver any emotional tie-ins.  I’m not asking for a Metal Gear Solid storyline but something close would be nice.

I remember back in the 70’s when my friends and I were attempting to figure out the chords and riffs in one of the Police songs. We spent countless days and hours together trying to get the notes right. It was a great sense of accomplishment when we finally came up with something decently close to the original. This goal fed our passion and friendship throughout the good and bad times.

Reading about the news that Microsoft’s XNA community games program made me think that this could generate the same passion and camaraderie among today’s friendships. XNA is a set of tools and programming languages that will allow video game pros and hobbyist to create games for Windows and the Xbox 360. The new XNA program will give producers an outlet on Xbox Live to promote, test and sell their games. I can see a lot of garage-programmers being spawned by this. But XNA its not for everybody. Programming terms such as C++, Visual, compilers and vectors were being thrown around in the XNA forums like they were Skittles in a candy store.
I wish I had this growing up. I could have skipped my hippie-long-hair-wannabe Bee Gees-look.