Timewaster's Guide Archive

I think any connection we think we might get is mostly an illusion.  Fell mentioned how the games were a sanitized version of the war, and unless there is a game out there that makes an effort to really show the atrocities, they will continue to be sanitized.

One of the big limitations of a game is that, generally, there is only one person reaching for the goals the game establishes.  A war involves tens of thousands of people, on each side, many of them what we might call non-combatants, but who still get involved.

Does the Vietnam game have a kid with a hidden grenade come to greet a platoon, and then blow up in the middle of it?  I honestly don't know, but if it did, suddenly you've got to kill every kid you see, or risk death yourself.  This is the kind of darkness that soldiers have to deal with, even today, and something that, if included in a video game, would seriously detract from the enjoyment of playing, IMO.  (I guess there may be some people out there that like the idea of killing children, but they need to be locked up, not catered to by the gaming industry.)

A war game, like any other game, has a set of rules that is, in some instances, completely arbitrary.  Learning the rules and using them to accomplish the goals given you is the fun of the game.  Though there may be similarities to actual events and situations, it seems to me that we haven't gotten to the point where the games are being made for historical accuracy first, and fun in play second.  I doubt we ever will.  What kind of connection we can make with those resources is probably up to the individual, and their perception.  I certainly wouldn't want to say it was all a waste of time.   :-/

You can tell they don't have enough story when they spend several minutes blaring music and showing panoramic shots of, well, anything.  

The place that stuck out most, IMO, is when they were riding the centaur/pegasus thing.  Too much, too loud.  It just seemed like they stopped the movie and said, "Hey, look at this neat CGI effect (which wasn't that neat) we paid for.  Better get the most out of it, eh?"

In no particular order:

The Empire Strikes Back
The Fifth Element
Undercover Blues
Drunken Master II
The Matrix (just the first one)
Unbreakable
Condorman
Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail
Tron
UHF

I was talking to Saint Ehlers on his recent trip to Utah, and he mentioned this site.  We were talking about reviewing games, and having had some pretty strong opinions about some games in the recent past, I wanted to come see what I might contribute.

I work for TSA (airport security), am married, and have three great kids.  I was thinking of starting a Hello! thread in Everything Else, but never liked that kind of thing anyway.  House of Mustard saw one of my posts and pointed me this direction.  Thanks HoM.

I'm with the author, Stargate SG-1 is the best.  It has good effects, great plots, and fabulous characters.  The interaction between Jack and Daniel is some of the best written dialog on television.  It's one of the only series where I can see a show in rerun and watch it again and enjoy it.

I've also liked Bablyon 5, ST:TNG, ST:DS9 after O'Brian and Worf moved over, but before Dax died, and the episodes of Voyager that focused on Tom Paris and B'Lanna (sp?) Torres, who both had great character arcs over the course of the series.  Janeway sucked, though.

Buffy is fun to watch, but, as has been mentioned, it's not specifically catering to a popular audience.  The dialog is full of the things people wish they could have said after the fact, but when I listen closely, most of the back and forth comes off lame.  Still, fun to watch.

I'd really like to see a TRON 2.  And I agree that you can't count anything out.  If the industry thinks they can trick us into spending money on something, they'll produce it whether it's worth a dollar or not.