Saturday, May 22, 2010

Drawing Winner!

Congrats to Jonathan for winning an amazing Companion Cube pillow!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Afternoon Quickie: Alan Wake

Ok so it's not the afternoon, we thought that this supposedly spooky game would be better suited for later evening. Yeah... maybe I should have tried at like 3 am and being completely sleep deprived.... Yeah so... have you ever seen the Blair Witch Project? How about Secret Window? Combine the two, add in some Energizer batteries and you have yourself a video game! It's really quite sad that the story is so sucky, cuz it looks like a pretty well designed game. I could read the Sync by Microsoft perfectly while they were driving in the car! So anywho... Gamer has been playing this game for about an hour and I'm going to go do laundry.


Did it pass the Wifey Watchability Test? It didn't even wake up in time for the exam.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Online Console Gaming

So my lovely husband got Street Fighter a little while back. He got it for two reasons. One, he has always liked the series. Two, he wanted to play online with his best friend. While I haven't gotten to see much him playing Street Fighter (probably because I compared it to West Side Story, read here). But, I have seen him play many online console games. He's got a great headset for the XBox that makes the game completely silent, minus his yelling at the TV/other people, and that makes for a happy wifey. However, I have had difficulty understanding the whole online console game stuff. I mean, what ever happened to going over to your friend's house to play?

But then, I had a revelation!

When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite t.v. shows was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Mind you, this was back when vampires died in the sunlight). My best friend Nicole and I would watch the show every week, and we would watch it together. However, we couldn't always go over to one another's house to watch it together so we would talk to each other over the phone during the commercials and just not hang up until the show was over. That way we could watch it together without having to be in the same place. Later, when I was in middle school, my friend Shauna and I would watch TRL together. (Mind you, this was when MTV still played music videos.) Now, we both loved Korn. At the time that I am remembering, the song "Somebody Someone" was really popular. Shauna and I would watch TRL while talking on the phone and waiting for "Somebody Someone" to be played.

And now, I understand online console gaming. Online console gaming isn't all that different than when Nicole or Shauna and I would sit and talk to each other while watch TV. Really the only difference is that you're controlling what's on the screen. The point isn't really to play the game with other people, but to spend time with your friends.

Ladies, this is a very important point, pay attention. Your gamer, sitting on the couch talking smack-talk to his friends and playing some ridiculous game, is basically doing the same thing that we do when we sit and talk on the phone/skype/chat while painting our toe nails. It is simply a bond-building activity for male gamers and is necessary for healthy socializing.

Now, gentlemen, you are likely to object to my rather emasculating opinion of your fine past-time. To alleviate any negative feelings, may I offer a suggestion? If you play it off to your girl that your online game play is an intricate bonding experience that is necessary for the maintenance of healthy male relationships, she might be more likely to give you more uninterrupted game play. (I say might. I don't know your girl and I can't speak for her, but generally, this should work.)

Ladies... if your guy tries to pulls the above ruse, just remember, his XBox doesn't keep his bed warm at night. You have your feminine wiles, and sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

April Movies

The summer movie season is upon us, and yes, this is a blog about video games, I am aware. (And that was one crazy bad sentence; deal.) I thought, as your cyber-neighborhood geek-girl mediator, I should recommend some good geek-ish movies. Here's my list of movie since April that I have seen and would, or would not, recommend and why:


  • Clash of the Titans- decent movie, saw it in 3D, wasted money; Go see this as a matinee or when a friend is paying and don't waste the money on 3D. It was good, but not great and there really wasn't much of a difference between standard and 3D.
  • Kick-Ass- bloody, violent, tons of nasty language, some sex scenes; DO NOT TAKE CHILDREN TO THIS MOVIE! I feel kinda dumb having to tell people that, but there was a 5-year-old watching this movie in the row in front of me. It is a great movie and if you are into comic books, you will love it. The flow is very comic-like (meaning a bit choppy) and the characters are very stereotypical and overdone, but it was a great movie. This is not for people who don't like a lot of violence, language, or who cannot take it with a large grain of salt. (Reminder: it's fictional. The 12 year old girl is not actually killing drug dealers with swords.)
  • The Losers- Another comic book movie. Good, but not great. Violent and sex scenes, but not nearly as much as Kick-Ass. It's a good story and a really fun movie. If you aren't a comic book type person, this probably won't be your type of movie. There are other comic book movies that would be better to start with, such as Iron Man or Ghost Rider.
  • Iron Man 2- We saw this as a midnight release. I would highly recommend. There is of course violence and some sexuality, but you could take the kids (probably not the 4 and 5 year olds, but middle and older kids should be fine). It's a great movie and a great first movie based on a comic book. The characters are bit unrealistic and strange, but other than that, you can't really tell it's based on a comic. If you haven't seen Iron Man, the first one yet, see that first.

There you have it. Four movies out within the last month that most gamer-type guys would like to see and that non-gamer-girls could potentially enjoy (based on your level of gamer-girlfriend experience).

Hey by the way...

GO ENTER THE DRAWING!!!!

Another Late Night Boob Rant

So... I was going to write about the obscene and strange nature of the Record of Agarest War Limited Edition. But, at first I couldn't remember the game's name. The only thing I remembered about it was that it came with a mouse pad that has breasts. Now you may be asking yourself "Why does an XBox game need a mouse pad?" And that's a good question. The better question is "WTF! Why are there boobs on that #@%$ing mousepad?" And so, I was going to go on a random rant about the video game world's obsession with breasts and how all these pasty-faced white boys living in their momma's basement have unrealistic views of breasts and if they ever got their hands on a real one, they'd probably die of shock, but I couldn't remember the game's name.

So I googled "mouse pads with breasts". (Take a second, read that line again, giggle a bit, and continue.)

I was googling and trying to find the name of this game and came upon 82,300 results, most of which are companies who sell mouse pads with "ergonomic" breasts for support! Most of the women featured on these products (still not sure if I should call them mouse pads, sex toys, or freaky fetish dolls) feature anime characters or adult movie stars; all with substantially large breasts... to support your wrists... or something.

Here's the real irony in all of this... Gigantic breasts are not ergonomic or supportive. In fact, they require large medieval devices into to be supported! In proportion to the photos on these mouse pads, some of these girls have breasts that are each larger than their heads. Pamela Anderson didn't even hit those proportions! Now I realize that reality is so far gone from the designers of these products. They make gel filled breasts that make even the worst implants feel like homegrown, and really, the idiotic men who will buy one of these mouse pads because they're cheaper than blow-up dolls will probably never care.

But for goodness sake they are breasts. Every female (and many males) have them! Your mother has breasts, and your grandmother, and great-grandmother. Why must their be gigantic breasts all of the place? Perhaps it is simply my inner feminist rearing her shaved GI Jane head, but this just seems out right crazy to me. These Freudian artifacts are just down right creepy, and I don't really have anything to say about the game...

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