After procrastinating for several nights, I have finally parked my buttocks out in the living room with the Tenchi DVDs and finished off the most recent episode of TMTT. Go forth and enjoy! (I am so glad that the problem was with the computer DVD-ROM drive and not the disc itself. Whew.)
In semi-related news, I patched Adobe Premiere and my initial tests indicate that the scrubbing problem has gone away. Once TMTT is completed I’ll devote more time to my next music video. Yay!
Before I get started, a quote that almost completely fails to relate to the topic at hand:
“Dear Japan: Please reconsider cartoon, gun-toting, big-eyed pre-pubescent blondes as your national hero! … Bit of a Sailor Moon thing, there…”
Mike Nelson, Mystery Science Theater 3000
(If you can name the episode, please let me know. I’m pretty sure it was one of those awful ones where invaders from space attack Japan and are thwarted by some cheeky guy in a bad costume. Ben, I’m counting on you.)
Where was I? Oh, yes. Cartoon violence. To be more accurate, cartoon-class violence in the electronic games I play.
When a hot new game comes out, it tends to be lauded for one of two qualities: Superior realism or great gameplay. Quake versus Duke Nukem 3D. Quake III Arena versus Unreal Tournament. (There are similar pairings in the non-shooter game genres, I’m just too lazy to think of any right now.) While the first Quake was a marvel of gaming technology, Duke Nukem was an absolute delight to play. Sure it had some of the worst-looking sprite-based graphics of all time, but you kept going back for more because it was fun. Quake wasn’t fun. Quake was an exercise in admiring the technical prowess of its programmers.
Cut to a few years ago. This time it’s another iD Software product against (surprise) another Epic Megagame. Quake III Arena is an undeniable triumph of gaming technology… but Unreal Tournament is a far more enjoyable game. The gap is narrower, but still distinct. Q3A has remarkable lighting and modeling technology, while UT has nice big cartoony weapons that do cool things. Guess which one I played more of?
Imagine my disappointment with the new UT game, Unreal Tournament 2003. The demo is pretty, very very pretty. It’s also… not quite as much fun to play. It’s gone “real.” The modelling is nicer, the level design is better, and you just plain can’t blow stuff up the way you could in the first UT. I think that with better weapons it could be a great game. As it is, I have to work way too hard to blow stuff up.
I can hear the gaming purists now. “What? Realism is a triumph of gaming technology! You should have to work harder for each frag! You suck.” That’s not why I play games, dammit. If I wanted to work hard, I’d go back to the office. I play games for the simple reason that I want to unwind. Odd notion, that. If I’m going to play a shooter, there should be big cartooney weapons that blow things way, way up. I don’t even mind getting fragged as long as the means of my demise are spectacularly cool.
There’s a strong possiblity that I’m not an ideal gamer. So what? Fitting in with the crowd has never been one of my driving impulses, thank you muchly. (You simply need to gaze upon my collection of vests to have that point driven home.)
I do have another reason to prefer less-realistic gaming fare, however. My children not only play some of these games, but also see me playing them. Once the characters and weapons become too real, once the blood and gore seem to be that of real beings, I believe it sets a bad parenting example to encourage playing the game. Before you laugh at this prudish belief coming from the likes of myself, at least stop a moment to respect the fact that this is my decision as a father in regards to how I choose to raise my children. Think about how many parents out there may not give a damn about what games their children are playing. What else in their kids’ lives are they not paying attention to?
For the record, my kids are allowed to play Diablo II, Unreal Tournament (with the gore levels set to nil) and a variety of other games. My son, on his own initiative, ceased playing UT for a number of months because he felt that playing a violent game was counteracting his efforts at controlling his temper. We talk about the games we play, about reality versus fantasy, and about a whole host of other issues. If letting them play some of these games makes me a bad parent, then making sure that I’m both involved in their activities and discussing things with them should at least balance that out.
Reality is parenting and my work. Fantasy is demolishing pixellated monsters in spectacular and cartooney ways. There are worse ways to be.
As some of you may know, I’m on something resembling a vacation. While it is true that I won’t be leaving the house more than once or twice during my long break from work, I think I’ll still manage to enjoy myself.
Wendi and Bernie left at noon Wednesday. The balance of that day was spent minding various children, going to a cub scout activity and then sacking out for the night. Yesterday was our first full day without Mom and Grandpa around. I managed to deal with the three-year-old munchkin that I was dragooned into babysitting, and also managed not to screw up dinner too badly.
The kids and I are looking forward to a nice long weekend of fun and frolic, including all the gaming we can stand. I’m also hoping to finish up TMTT by the end of my vacation and possibly get some more work done on my next music video.
I’ve also got a bit of a hankering to tinker with the website a little. I’m not sure what I want to do, but I want to do something. Be afraid, be very… no, I suppose there’s nothing to really be afraid of. Nevermind. Let’s put it this way: Right now the only thing on this site that represents my anime-fanboy side is TMTT, and I think I’d like to do something about that. I’m not thinking of cluttering up the design of the main site, mind you. What I have (very vaguely) in mind is more like a sub-site with all kinds of anime geegaws and what-not.
Or maybe I should wait until I have a high-speed Internet connection at my disposal once more. Blah. Stupid modem.
Gee Dubya isn’t exactly on a roll lately. First there’s the absurd “fool me once” episode. Then there’s his concept of “embetterment” in Israel. And now this. (Thanks, Rooba!)
My theory is that they’ve buried Dan Quayle under a load of latex costuming and passed him off as a Bush. Hey, have you ever seen the two of them together? (Of course not. That amount of stupidity in close proximity would probably spawn some sort of tear in the fabric of space-time, or some nonsense like that.)
Nostalgia is a powerful sensation. I woke up at 7:00 this morning in a strange bed. That’s not the nostalgia part, you silly reader you. My hour-long morning jaunt around the quiet golf resort provided me with waves upon waves of homesickness.
So where’s home, you ask? Good question. I grew up in the wilds of central Washington state. I couldn’t point to a particular town or location and say, “Here is what I think of when I say ‘home’,” but there is a collection of places that figure strongly in my memories of youth.
Somewhere on the other side of the Columbia river from here is the Lewis River campgrounds. At one point our family was involved in taking care of those grounds, and I have surpringly fond memories of the place. There’s also the Samish Island (really a peninsula) campgrounds. Apparently I spent a lot of quality time at church camping activities. Who knew?
The resort at which the retreat was held reminded me partly of Lewis River and partly of the Cascade foothills we frequented often when we lived near Brewster, WA. Everywhere you looked there were pine trees, cedar trees, hills and rocks and underbrush. I don’t miss my childhood, but I miss those places. I’m probably not smart or wise enough to resolve this apparent conundrum. Ah well.
The retreat ended after lunch, so Gary and I took off for the office. I wanted to get the Qualitap issue resolved at long last, and thankfully a fresh CD-ROM was waiting in my mail slot. With that completed and instructions emailed out to the relevant parties, I feel relatively safe in entering my vacation week.
I am home now. There are rugrats galore, two of which are even mine. Wendi and Bernie leave tomorrow morning. I’ll be babysitting one rugrat on weekdays, and then just Alex and Erica on the weekend. (Having them at home isn’t really babysitting. They’re not babies anymore.) I’ll probably check my work email occasionally, if only to prune the metric ton of spam I get every day. Other than that, I have no plans. I’m tied to the house for a week, so I should just try to make the best of it.
