There’s a fascinating article over at Next Generation on The Ten Greatest Years In Gaming (as well as an interesting discussion thread over at Slashdot. As an avid gamer, reading over the highlights definitely brought back memories of gameplay past, which led me to ask, what’s my history of gaming? I think it’d go something like this:

• 1982: My family gets its first Atari (clone?). Space Invaders and Pac Man are the games of the day. Amusement to no end was had when a sibling was playing a game, as you would switch their control from joystick to paddle during gameplay. Worst game ever: ET. Even in those low expectation times it was bad.
• 1986: My family gets a NES, because everyone was getting a NES. Well, first we start by renting systems from the video store, but eventually we cave in. The video store became my new hangout. My favorite game: Metal Gear. Why? I still don’t know.
• 1992: My cousin shows me Wolfenstein 3D on his PC. 3D immersive graphics and no real plot? I’m there!
• 1993: What’s this Doom you speak of? It runs on Silicon Graphics computers and I can download it for free? Sweet, I can play this in the computing lab when it’s dead. Also, a friend of mine gets Myst, which is the first blockbuster but last successful point and click adventure title.
• 1994: I discover MUDs, and make friends in Singapore. I start uttering the phrase “wa lau eh” whenever my character is in trouble.
• 1995: The SNES will be rented many times, but only two games are ever played: Chrono Trigger and F-Zero.
• 1996: Network lab filled with Macs + free download of Marathon II = great stress relief. You can jump! And use two handguns at once! OMFG! I also discover Warlords for Mac, which, aside from word processing, becomes its only purpose.
• 1997: The original Civilization makes time magically disappear. “The peasants are revolting!” They sure are. Just get me gunpowder, and I’ll show them.
• 1998: One of the benefits to having a networked group of computers at the workplace? Quake 2. The term “fragging” enters my lexicon.
• 1999: The original PlayStation is gifted to me. Much fun was had, but I primarily remember Xenogears (cementing my love for RPGs), Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill (showing how games can be narrative and a form of storytelling / new entertainment medium), and Final Fantasy VIII (showing me what a collosal waste of time RPGs can be). Resident Evil 2 defined the survival-horror genre. (Yes, the second one, not the first.) Oh, and Tetris Plus — I still play that game.
• 2000: I get PlayStation 2. I have to send it back because it doesn’t work. I get another. I have to send it back. I get another, and, lo, I saw that it was good. Games, unfortunately, were not. Sega Dreamwhat? I look with longing at Mario Tennis on N64.
• 2001: A little game named Grand Theft Auto III appeared on the scene. I don’t know how the above linked article didn’t mention this game.
• 2003: Yeah, I’d like to play Eternal Darkness, what with me being a survival-horror fan, but hold myself back from buying a GameCube. Even Resident Evil 4 couldn’t bring me over to that camp.
• 2004: Time for retro: Doom 3 is released, which emboldens me to build a new PC. It’s good for a few levels, then you just get bored of the same thing over and over. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the best game I’ve ever played.
• 2005: Ooh, Half Life 2 offers an ultra-realistic physics engine and further justification for building a PC. Unfortunately, it makes me nauseated to play. God of War is crowned the new best game I’ve ever played. I get a PSP and wonder where the games are.
• 2006: I buy my wife Civilization 4, and proceed to play it ad nauseum.

Oh, the memories. It’s amazing to think that I’ve been playing video games for twenty-four years. At this point, I think it’d be hard to picture a world without them. Video games are for kids? Ha! It’s no surprise that the average age of a gamer is 33 years of age (according to the ESA).

Quick — name the 10 Commandments. Don’t kill, don’t lie, um…wasn’t there something about graven images? Oh yeah, coveting…bearing false witness…how many is that?

Stephen Colbert recently asked Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, who was trying to get the 10 Commandments on display in public buildings, to name them. He could not. (Entire clip is currently available on Comedy Central and You Tube.)

I wanted to make a snide comment on this, but realized I couldn’t name the 10 Commandments. Sure, since Westmoreland is trying to actually get the 10 Commandments in public buildings, he probably should know them. However, I’ve discovered there’s actually a larger issue: the actual composition of the 10 Commandments is not really clear. Just because you’re Christian or Jewish doesn’t mean that you order them the same way, so putting governmental support of an official set of commandments means actually supporting particular sects. I hope you’re not Jewish. Or Methodist. Or…well, let’s dive into it a little, with Wikipedia’s help.

Lutheran and Roman Catholic Commandments:

1. Have no other Gods but me. No graven images.
2. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
3. Keep the Sabbath. (Note: the Sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday, but current faith uses Sunday.)
4. Honor your father and mother.
5. Do not kill.
6. Do not commit adultery.
7. Do not steal.
8. Do not bear false witness.
9. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife.
10. Do not covet your neighbor’s property.

Commandments for some other Christian Groups (e.g. Methodist):

1. Have no other Gods but me.
2. No graven images.
3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Keep the Sabbath.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Do not kill.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not bear false witness.
10. Do not covet.

Bonus #1: Jewish Commandments

1. Have no other Gods but me.
2. No graven images.
3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Keep the Sabbath. (This is actually respected on the Sabbath.)
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Do not kill.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not kidnap.
9. Do not bear false witness.
10. Do not covet.

Bonus #2: Islamic Ten Commandments:

1. Have no other Gods but me.
2. No graven images.
3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Honor God for the Congregational Prayer.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Do not kill.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not bear false witness.
10. Do not covet.

They all say essentially the same thing, and are even based on essentially the same text. However, commandments in public display, such as the one at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas pick a specific version (in this case, a Lutheran / Catholic model). This is interesting: governmental posting of numbered Ten Commandments is official endorsement of a particular branch of Christianity. It’s bad enough that it ignores the Jewish and Islamic populations; it also ignores other Christian populations. Of course, the even larger problem is the notion of separation of church and state; however, ignoring that gigantic issue for the moment, we can’t even agree on the proper display of the commandments, without supporting specific sects.

So, before you say you know the Ten Commandments by number, keep in mind that there’s disagreement even between Christians. Thankfully, they all say basically the same thing. It’s just not a good idea for government to pick the “right” one. (Well, that, and the whole church / state thing.)

Ah, another wonderful opus from director Uwe Boll. BloodRayne is the latest video game conversion from this director known for bad video game conversions, and given that this is showing up as #43 on IMDB’s bottom 100 films, this movie looked to be meeting the same fate. I was practically salivating at the chance to watch this movie, because I wanted to see a bad movie. Needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed.

First off, I loved playing BloodRayne 2. That game was sexy, violent, dark, and funny. You got the chance to enjoy the main character because she had a sense of humor. She had sass and humor, which really added a sort of lighthearted element to an otherwise quite dark and morbid game. For example, this quote:

Minion: The Master, I mean, Mr. Zerenski, would prefer that all guests remain downstairs, madam.
Rayne:The Master can blow me, monkey suit.

I still remember cracking up when one of the non-player characters commented something to the effect of, “Ooh, I’m going make you make me a sandwich!” There was an interesting blend of acrobatics, intense action, dark environments, humor, and sex appeal.

Then, we have this movie purportedly based on the game. First, let’s address the sex appeal straightaway:

Image on right: sexy. Image on left: not sexy. This is rather tragic, because the image on the left is of a real, living, breathing woman, while the one on the right is of a computer generated character. Further driving the tragedy is the fact that the real woman, Kritianna Loken, is sexy, though you wouldn’t really know it from this movie aside from its one awkward, unnecessary, and unsexy sex scene. It says something when the game is sexier than the movie.

Let’s take a look at some other highlights of this spectacular failure of a movie…

• Casting: How exactly did they cast the roles for this movie? Throw darts at a dart board? Who thought that Ben Kingsley would make a good Kagan? The addition of Michael Madsen, Billy Zane, and Michelle Rodriguez seemed rather non sequitorial choices as well. Speaking of odd choices…Meatloaf? Really?
• Acting: If you thought Kingsley and Madsen would add a little gravitas to the acting in this movie, think again. I could swear that Madsen got his lines thirty seconds before they shot each scene. It felt at times like I was watching a high school play, except that the lines are delivered in a high school play with more drama. Oddly enough, Michelle Rodriguez did an acceptable job. Everyone else appeared to be just waiting for the checks to clear.
• Story: There is a storyline to this movie. It’s consistent as a standard story in that it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s about the end of the positive feedback. Did Uwe Boll even play the games? Have someone get him an executive summary? You could say that this movie was a prequel since it took place hundreds of years ago, while the games took place in the 1930s and current time, except it contradicts events in the games. So, it’s a completely made up plot. It’s written horribly.
• Cinematography: Fight scenes were shot in jerky fashion — if Boll was going for the disoriented feel, then he got that. Some shots were quite beautifully done, though these tended to just slow down the movie. People are here for the action, right? Sadly, it’s the action scenes that were shot the worst.
• Choreography: By this I mean the fight scenes. This is definitely supposed to be one of the selling points of this movie. Unfortunately, they were bad. Really bad. Yuen Wu Ping this is not. The game had excellent acrobatic moves, but you don’t even get to see Rayne moving quickly until about the end of the film, and even that’s disappointing. Horribly developed, terrible action, terrible form — do not see this movie for the fight scenes.
• Special Effects: The game was gory, so the movie had to try to match that…and failed. Special effects have come a long way, so perhaps I’m a bit jaded, but I haven’t seen effects this bad in a long, long time. They were almost Army of Darkness bad. Really. Even the blood didn’t look real, which is unfortunate for a movie called BloodRayne.

I’m not even sure where to begin on this movie with so many problems. Scenes were shot and placed haphazardly and without purpose. Characters did out-of-character things. (Note: if you’re part of an ultra secret organization that’s fighting vampires, you probably shouldn’t bring one back to your secret lair if you’ve just met.) Bad action for an action movie. Failure to be consistent with the game on which the movie was based. (You can’t kill Kagan hundreds of years before he comes back in both the 30s and current day. It just doesn’t work that way.) Failure to be consistent in any way, shape or form to the characters of the game.

You can’t make a video game to movie conversion and just toss out the game altogether. That defeats the purpose of doing the video game to movie conversion in the first place. The highlights of the game included acrobatics, guns (!), fighting, dark environments, strong-willed but funny main character, and sex appeal. The movie failed on every count.

However, this has come to be expected of Uwe Boll, and this film failed spectacularly. I’ve never seen acting so bad, nor gore so poorly done in a current big budget movie in a long, long time. I had thought this would be bad, but I was wrong: this is really, really, really bad. Almost cult classic bad. Almost. I’m still trying to figure out how he got Ben Kingsley to handicap himself out of any acting ability whatsoever for this project. He may have had to reshoot scenes where he was acting too much or something.

And there you have the paradox of Ewe Boll: on the one hand, he’s responsible for actually getting popular video games converted to movies. On the other, he will absolutely butcher the project. If you are familiar with a game that Boll is converting, you will find the movie to be that much worse. The more you like the game, the more you will hate the movie. If you don’t like the game, you’ll just think it’s a bad movie. It’s a lose-lose situation, but somehow, Boll makes it work.

So add BloodRayne to the list: it really is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I actually feel dumber for having watched it. Yet, I have no one to blame but myself for that. Even Meatloaf Aday couldn’t save this one.

Stephen Colbert recently gave the commencement address at Knox College. An interesting read. While the majority of the speech is filled with the comedic stylings of his television show, he finished with a serious message to the class: don’t be a cynic.

So, say “yes.” In fact, say “yes” as often as you can. When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City and other places, there was really only one rule I was taught about improv. That was, “yes-and.” In this case, “yes-and” is a verb. To “yes-and.” I yes-and, you yes-and, he, she or it yes-ands. And yes-anding means that when you go onstage to improvise a scene with no script, you have no idea what’s going to happen, maybe with someone you’ve never met before. To build a scene, you have to accept. To build anything onstage, you have to accept what the other improviser initiates on stage. They say you’re doctors—you’re doctors. And then, you add to that: We’re doctors and we’re trapped in an ice cave. That’s the “-and.” And then hopefully they “yes-and” you back. You have to keep your eyes open when you do this. You have to be aware of what the other performer is offering you, so that you can agree and add to it. And through these agreements, you can improvise a scene or a one-act play. And because, by following each other’s lead, neither of you are really in control. It’s more of a mutual discovery than a solo adventure. What happens in a scene is often as much a surprise to you as it is to the audience.

Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what’s going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say “yes.” And if you’re lucky, you’ll find people who will say “yes” back.

Now will saying “yes” get you in trouble at times? Will saying “yes” lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes.”

Excellent words, Mr. Colbert. It’s all too easy in life to become a cynic, so I applaud you calling it out. I apologize for you having to suffer the drudgeries of Galesburg, Illinois.

FOX9 Investigators recently reported on kids accessing porn at schools from their PSPs. Slow down there, buddy. Take a deep breath, because there are a lot of trigger words there. This is basically the definition of a sensationalistic story: talk about kids and porn, link it to schools and gaming, and bam! Instant news story.

I’m all for exposing serious issues with porn in schools or kids unnecessarily exposed to violence or sex in gaming, but this is ridiculous. PSPs are just appliances, like a toaster. What makes them different is that they’re Internet-enabled appliances. (Unless you have one of those new fangled Internet toasters.) Can you access porn on PSP? Yep. Just as you can on a laptop or cell phone. The key here is to note that porn is on the Internet, not on the PSP.

Fox9 really went all out on this, including calling up a PSP porn site and asking them if they were targeting kids. Porn sites are out there for one reason: to make money. There is no money in providing porn to kids. They don’t have credit cards. So why would they want to target kids? New cradle-to-grave marketing methodologies?

My favorite bit was this excerpt:

Sony, the maker of the PSP, told us that parents should be responsible for monitoring the content their children are viewing. But David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family, says game makers have a responsibility too. They should let parents know that their product could give a kid easy access to pornography.

Mr. Walsh, this has nothing to do with gamemakers. This has everything to do with the Internet. Such restrictions apply to all Internet-enabled electronics. Does your child have a laptop? How about a PDA? Do they have a cell phone? Have your laptop provider, PDA provider, and cell phone provider noted that you might be able to access porn on them? Identifying this issue with gaming is asinine. Think first, and identify the real problem.

Should the porn site have better age restriction checks? Possibly. Should the school network have better restrictions (considering that’s how the student was getting online in the first place)? Definitely. This has nothing to do with gaming, and everything to do with how minors access porn on the Internet. Parents: stop blaming the games, and start parenting.