Gamers are Awesome, not Lazy

That's right, Parents, Grandparents, bosses, I said it. We're not lazy, or anit-social, well most of us anyway. "But, Megan, what proof do you have to back this up?" I hear you non believers ask. First, I've been told that you should start a sentence with but, but I do it all the time, (you also shouldn't start a sentence with And, but I'm about to do it.) And, I can't give you numbers, or science, but I can give you personal experience, and what I have observed. When I'm not working with video games as part of my job, (how I wish I actually played them for a living) I am at home playing them, or even watching them. I'm active on YouTube, checking my subscription box regularly, and most of them are of people playing the games that I don't like, or won't get for a while.

There are a lot of people on the internet that record themselves playing games, and I'm one of the people who watches them. Some of these commentators actually make a living off of making these videos, off of playing video games, and in turn they get to hear and talk to a lot of fans who watch their videos and find enjoyment and entertainment from them. For the most part, most of these commentators love their fans, and read every single comment and message they get from the fans, and listen to them. Not Anti-Social. Let me give you another example. Minecraft. Yes, I said it. Love it or hate it, it's gotten a lot of attention. Enough that a Minecraft convention, Minecon, is happening this weekend in Las Vegas. And a good number of YouTube commentators will be going there to meet their fans, along with have fun. And they are amazingly excited for it. See, not anti-social. They see day light, gamers that is.

Gamers are also not lazy, we cultivate talents without knowing it sometimes. We're constantly thinking when playing a game, looking for the best tactic, or the best way to befriends someone, or sneak behind their back to steal from them. Through my own personal experience I've found that recently when playing Dragon Age 2 I've found that I've been working on multi-tasking. Killing my enemies of giant spiders with no mercy is my main task, but I have to make sure that my character doesn't die, and the lives of my companions. All the while checking on their tactics and that my mage will actually heal someone when they start to die because I've used the potion and it hasn't had enough time to cool down. All those FPS games, those take thinkin', tactics, game plans. Call of Duties, Battlefields, Halo, even Gears of War, even those little Final Fantasy games take some planning when it comes to your characters.

I was in Voice/Keyboard for five years in Middle/High School. I sang in a choir and I took daily keyboard lessons, learning on my own and from the teachers. You would think that in all those years I'd be able to play some moderate stuff, right? At least something out of the level 4 piano book. Wrong. My left hand doesn't like to be independent a lot of the time. If my right hand is doing something simple, then yeah my left hand will go off on it's own, but if, say for chance, my right hand were playing the melody of a song, like the Sleeping Beauty Waltz, my left hand cannot play the accompanying chords for the song. It refuses to be simple, and wants to do what my right hand is doing. Now, what was the point of my telling you this? What relevance does it have to gamers? When I am playing Left 4 Dead, of Dragon Age 2 like earlier this week, my hands are all over the place. They know what they have to do to kill the undead and to keep myself, and maybe others (Antonio not included, you coward) alive throughout the game. When I was playing Guild Wars I had two computers up so I could play on one and look up anything about the game on the other simultaneously. My left hand had no trouble doing that. Playing all these games is actually training my hands, and in turn it's making my typing speed faster also. Not particularly more accurate, but, faster.

So, as I was taught in school, here is my conclusion. Gamers are in fact not lazy, or anti-social, in fact they can be quite social, funny, who actually know how to speak proper English, and game speak, meet people in real life, and are actually training their brains and hands, and their body if they use any of the motion "controllers". I may not have used science, but I used my own personal experiences and first hand observations. Thank you for your time. *bows*

All Game Reviewers Suck. Except Us. Well.....

*Presses Start*

It's been a long, long, long October guys. But we've been totally busy! From Extra Life to Left 4 Zelda to The First Impressions to some of the personal things we've gotten through, we've been doing a lot of stuff for you guys. One thing that totally comes to mind is the recent stuff for first impressions.

Now, If you haven't listened to our first impression stuff yet, that's cool. I'll give you a quick rundown of the entire thing. We talk about games that have recently come out and I give a small little review based off of what I've seen and played so far. In no way shape or form is it a full fledged review. Usually, I have the game for about a hour or a day. When I do give reviews, I would wholeheartedly give a fair and honest review to what I would think the game deserves. I'm no fan of the number scale, I would much much rather tell you to get the game or pass by it. I would think that's totally fair. I'm only going off my own experiences. I'm sure there's someone out there who thinks that the original Assassin's Creed was miles better then any of the sequels that came out or someone that thinks that the original Uncharted is more action-packed then Uncharted 2. It happens all the time. We should however, clear the air really really quick.

We are not, the end all, be all.

There is way too much behind the scenes when it comes to gaming for me to say without a shadow of a doubt that "professional" game reviewers aren't some sort of bias when it comes down to publishers and their games. A event comes to mind back in 2007. Jeff Gerstmann gave a overly negative review of Kane and Lynch, a pretty big Eidos title . It wouldn't have been a huge issue except that Eidos at the time was shelling out a huge ton of money towards the ads of Mr. G's home website, Gamespot. When the review dropped, Eidos threatened to pull promotional ads for the present and the future if action was not taken. Instead of Gamespot not backing down, They fired Mr. Gerstmann instead. I've made clear to people that I actually enjoyed bits and pieces of Kane and Lynch but it wasn't a stellar game by any means. As a gamer, you don't want to hear drivel shoved in your ears, you want to hear the truth. Truth was that Kane and Lynch couldn't cut it as well as we all would have hoped. Fast forward 4 years later, and EA has been shown, when asking for reviewer copies, getting a little more personal information then really needs to be like "Has the reviewer reviewed _______ before? What score did it give receive Does the reviewer like FPS's? etc." It may not seem like much, but it was a ton of information for a "PLZ give free game". On top of all that, a ton of reviewers a couple days prior to Battlefield 3 launching decided that the PC game and the console game should be reviewed separately, due to EA insisting that there was no possible way to gauge a console release since there was going to be a day one patch on the consoles. Like dolts, they all did just that. Now, don't get me wrong. BF3 deserves a crystal clear shot at greatness. However, there are plenty of games that get day one patches. What made BF3 any different?

Youtube Reviews, you're not out of the woods either. Youtube is the biggest soapbox out there and everyone inspires to be a AVGN or insert some crazy equivalent here. However, for every well thought out review, there's 10 that are just plain strange with reasons being "I don't like X because it isn't Y." Or "This game just sucks. I can't tell you why, but it just sucks." That doesn't help at all, genius. Explain WHY this game isn't all that great. Explain why I shouldn't spend 60 on this wonderful game that is wowing the crap out of me. But then again, It's Youtube. Everyone can be great on Youtube with enough effort.

And then there's us. TCPS. We make no point in sugarcoating anything (hence the explicit tags on our podcast) and the witty banter often goes unchecked and we're not exactly the spot to go to for immediate go to news. If you're looking for unbias, we'll try hard as hard as we can, but try telling Megan that when Zelda: Skyward Sword comes out. We are, however the spot to go to if you want to hear two seemingly normal but totally not normal at all adult talk about gaming old and gaming new. We are the spot to go to if you want to watch Megan find her gaming childhood one NES game at a time. We're random and we're damn proud. That's our charm. We're not exempt at all from bias, but I'll tell you upfront when we're totally bias.

You know who's the best game reviewer of all time? YOU. Only you know who you really like. You see a game. Think it looks cool? Spend the money and cop it. Who gives a damn what Game Joe gave it or Snoozepro? Who knows, you may find yourself with a hidden gem. Reading up on reviews, I thought that Bionic Commando 2009 was terrible, but when I got my hands on it, it turns out not to be a bad game at all. Reverse for Dead Island where people were touting that game to be amazing, and I thought it to be pretty bland and not that much fun, even with multiplayer. Sometimes it just pays off to just dive in head first and pick a title. If it wasn't diving in headfirst, I would have never played some of my favorite games of all time. Including Chrono Trigger.

I don't think Final Fantasy is the best game ever, nor do I think that Hunted was the worst game I've played this year. No, that's reserved for MindJack and Call of Juarez: The Cartel. No matter what we think, however, make your own judgement. Too many great games get missed because people are too afraid to have fun and draw their own conclusions. If you want some sort of hilarity with your reviews, stick with us. Come for the games. Stay for the conversation.

Strife out.

Continue?

November Upcomings!

Halloween is coming, and after that is November. With November comes the beginning of some of the most anticipated titles. The Holiday gaming releases are upon us, folks. So what does that mean for TCPS? Well, you can expect more first impression podcasts of games coming out, and games that have recently come out. More podcasts of us playing classics in honor of new releases. Sonic, (the hedgehog, not the fast food chain,) is celebrating a milestone and a new game, and we're doing something special for him.

There might be a tiny celebration of both of our hosts working in the Video Game industry, in some fashion, (this means that Megan got a job. Really, it's a means for celebration.) And after Megan sells her video game inspired handmade creations, she'll be able to shoot more zombies with Antonio in a Legend of Zelda Left 4 Dead add-on. We'll record it, we promise it'll contain some classic moments.

Stay tuned for a regular release of podcasts, blog posts, and more. Antonio will be participating in a Iron Man of Gaming event this November and we'll bring you updates on that also. He's brushing up on his MvC3 as we speak. And don't forget to check us out on the Twitter-sphere @TCPSpodcast and on Facebook here.

Updates abound! Stay tuned!