After much blood, sweat and feces, I finally managed to score a Wii system. It involved daily multi-borough trips to stores, a lot of walking and finally after getting a tip from a guy that a store I’d just left had received a shipment a few minutes ago, I jogged 8 blocks, got in line and nabbed the second to last one in stock. People were yelling, pleading and waving cash around, trying to buy a spot in line. Ugly, but it paid off.

I am now the proud parent of the much coveted Wii console. I can safely say that it’s the coolest and most innovative gadget I’ve had since I was a kid and the first home video game console came out. The Wii Remote is the best game controller I’ve ever used and after two days of owning one, I now have a a good case of Wii-arm from swinging it all over the place.

The Wii Sports games are retarded fun and the new Zelda is crazy addictive. I haven’t downloaded any of the virtual console games yet, but likely will at some point.

If you’re one of the lucky few with a Wii, feel free to add me to your Wii Friends. I’m kind of curious to see how it works and at this point, don’t know of anyone else that has a console. Here’s my Wii number: 4691 1553 9342 4896.

I’ve spent this past weekend scouring websites, trudging into stores and trying to find a Nintendo Wii with zero fucking results. Every website I check is sold out. Every half-wit store clerk I ask gives me a sullen mumble that I’m told means no.

The prospect of waiting for what could be possibly months has got me nearly despondent. My hands twitch in desperate need of wireless nunchaku gaming joy. I need it. I must have it! I would slaughter my non-existent first-born child for a Wii. For a few extra games thrown in, I’d not only slaughter the kid but cook him up and make lovely tea sandwiches out of him.

I have some standards. I refuse to pay over-bloated prices on Ebay so some enterprising dick-face can make a profit. Whoring (totally NSFW) for it is out and I’m not of the temperament to wake at down and wait in line at the Nintendo World store in the hopes the get a console in.

So I wait.

This South Park episode about World of Warcraft has to be my most favorite episode ever.

This past weekend, I bit the bed-rail and picked up a copy of World of WarCraft. Having been a moderate EverQuest and EQ2 junkie, I’d thought I quit the MMORPG habit cold, but after seeing some statistics stating that over fifty percent of the MMORPG players worldwide are on WoW, I decided to give it a try. It seems the numerous weekends spent chained to a computer, fingers nervously twitching from an overdose of caffeine, nicotine and sleep deprivation while farming beasts to improve my leather-working skills was just not enough for me.

As with EQ, the install and initial update took well over an hour to finish and the monthly account fee is the same fifteen bucks I could be donating to save some village of crippled, blind children in Africa, but hey…I’m already going to Hell anyway.

In EQ, my main was a Wood-Elf Druid and I really got to liking the soloing capabilities of that class, so in keeping with tradition, I chose a Night-Elf Druid to be my first character. The huge Minotaur-like Tauren, Trolls, Orcs and Undead were really appealing since I generally like to keep it evil, but I decided to stick with what I know, at least for now. I’ve played Druids for about two years and I know that class’s place, alone or in groups pretty down-pat. Tree-hugger, I am not, but I know what I know.

I was very surprised to see how very similar WoW is to EQ2. The gameplay and mechanics are in many ways nearly the same. You’d think someone at Sony would’ve sued by now. Maybe they have or perhaps Sony ripped off someone else first—I’ve no idea, but the similarities had me up and running right away, killing and running all over the place.

The only real differences I see—aside from the basic stuff like graphics, races and zones is that questing seems to be better set up in WoW. I rarely finished any quests in EQ, but over the course of the weekend, I’d managed to get something over twenty complete quests under my belt in WoW. In a matter of a few hours (I did get some sleep), I managed to work my way up to level 12.

I missed MMORPGs. There’s a reason EQ was dubbed EverCrack. I’m not sure what the slang for WoW would be…”WarCrack”? I’m not sure how long I’m willing to invest in playing WoW, but for now, I’m all about it. If you’re in the neighborhood, drop me a /tell. My main’s name is Abbath (ripped straight from the Norwegian Black Metal gods, Immortal) on the Anvilmar server.

I bought a brand-spanking-fresh-copy of the FPS game, Prey, after waiting for it for almost a year. All the videos, screengrabs and rants I’d seen had me thinking it was going to be the coolest shit since duct tape.

After installing to my desktop’s XP partition (and subsequently spending 40 minutes running updates and patches since I never boot Windows anymore), I gave it a whirl and was greeted with a jerky, shitty looking game with the lowest frame-rate I’ve ever seen. A little deeper digging and I found that my NVidia GeForce 5200 wasn’t supported and closest I could get to smooth gameplay was by running at the lowest graphical settings, which were horrible. I wasn’t happy.

(more…)

A few days ago, after spending a wretched day renewing my ID at the hell that is the Brooklyn DMV, I picked up a copy of “Shadow of the Colossus” for the PS2 to brighten my day. I had no idea what it was about, but chose it because somewhere at some point I’d glanced at a review that raved about it. This is basically how I buy all games as I’ve a decided lack of patience to read gamer sites and magazines. I usually will subscribe to an RSS feed and scan the photos and titles. Games that get a bunch of posts, stick in my memory and usually end up getting purchased in moments of consumer weakness, which is often.

The format of your run-of-the-mill action game is: fight, fight, fight…boss scene. Fight the boss and then it’s back to fight, fight, fight til the next boss scene and the game eventually ends. Nothing wrong with it, I suppose but the boss fights have historically always been my least favorite parts. Give me a room with twenty little baddies that I have to kill á la God of War and I am one happy fucking camper. Games that are boss-heavy usually begin to collect dust shortly after purchase.

SotC is all bosses. There’s nothing else to the game, unless you count running from point A to B. There’s not baddies in between to slay. You go from one boss monster to another and while normally this would have me hating this game, I find myself hooked. SotC doesn’t have just any old bosses. These bastards are HUGE, gorgeously rendered behemoths that combine action, puzzle-solving and strategy to beat. The graphics, scenery and feel are hot shit. Strange, mysterious and moody. There’s little or no dialog in the game so the huge dream-like world sprawled out before you, unoccupied but for the mountainous beasts reminiscent of something out of HP Lovecraft is simply there to wonder about.

The hero of the game is this dinky little fucker, armed with only a sword and bow and a horse to ride. Pitted against giants literally fifty times larger, the little dude has to expose and attack the monster’s weak points. This is accomplished by figuring out how and managing to climb the boss, get to his weak spots and stab the fuck out of them before you lose your grip and fall. Tense shit.

There’s something to be said about a game revolving around my least enjoyed facet of the action genre that manages to completely entertain me. SotC is a great game on so many levels, from the concept to the anime-like look. It’s a short game, there being only sixteen bosses to battle, which sucks since this is a game that keeps you wanting to see more. More bosses, more areas, more everything.

For the past month and a half, I’ve been spending a good chunk of my free time in Second Life. Stripped from the official website, Second Life is described as “a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents.” Since it’s user-run, it’s hard to peg, since everyone generally moves to groups and cliques they identify with and do or create whatever the hell they want. In short, from pervert to programmer and from gamer to shut-in—there’s something for everyone. Second Life is definitely some pretty whacked out shit, worth at least a quick look.

Touring about the territories of Second Life, you see seemingly endless 3D creations. Houses, vehicles, stores, giant purple dildos, whatever you could possibly imagine seems to be represented there in one form or another. Users are given the use of a 3D modeling program while having the benefit of still being in-game, allowing you to create objects while playing or possibly as a form of play. Some objects are incredibly beautiful and painstakingly crafted to be as aesthetic or realistic as possible, while others are mediocre or downright lame. Being a self-created reality, there’s quite a varying amount of quality out there.

Everything made in Second Life can be sold to other players, using game dollars known as Lindens. In turn, this virtual money can actually be exchanged for real hard currency. The last time I checked the exchange rate, twenty US dollars made the equivalent of around four hundred Linden dollars. Some people—prolific and talented ones, actually make a tidy chunk of cash of this virtual business. I’ve met one individual who nets about twenty thousand dollars annually from in-game sales of items, scripts and real estate, nicely supplementing his teacher’s salary.

While I’m impressed with Second Life, I don’t really know what to make of it. There’s some really smart people, very talented artists and professionals and a huge mass of idiots, perverts and all-around trashy people. There seems to be bondage shit everywhere you look and everyone seems to be trying to make up for their shortcomings through their avatars. Everyone’s got big muscles, huge boobs and all the trappings. It’s pretty seedy and more than a little bit gross. Where are all the fat, bald people? Personally speaking, blindingly beautiful person that I am, I spent a good chunk of time getting my avatar to look about as close to the real-life me as I could. I just don’t understand why so many people need to look like rejects from a Florida nightclub. Who wants to see that shit?

A good defense of this good, bad and ugly is the fact that it is truly user-run. All this crap is from the great masses. While a kind of exhilarating example of digital democracy, it doesn’t do much in changing my belief that the majority of the human race would be better served as food to the smarter individuals. Brains, it’s what’s for dinner, but I digress.

I don’t know how long I’ll stick with Second Life. My PlayStation is much more inviting and requires much less actual work, but if you find yourself in-game, stop by. My game-name is David Sleestak. I’ll show you my house and we’ll kill a few beers and bong-hits. In-game, of course.

I’ve become completely addicted to playing the game Katamari Damacy for the PS2. If you’ve never played it before, go out and get it right now.

You control this miniscule little galactic prince with an oddly shaped head, whose task is to roll a ball around various places on Earth, collecting items via a kind of “stickiness” property of the ball. As the ball gets larger by virtue of the things sticking to it, you are able to attach bigger and bigger items. From sushi and cookies to cattle, police officers and buildings, your goal is to create as big a ball or “katamari” as possible. Finished katamari are lifted to the heavens and made into stars by your enormous, gold chain macking father. It’s a pretty simple premise.

The game has a surreality reminiscent of the Teletubbies and some of the more intense drug-abusing moments of my adolescence. All the weird shapes, styles, colors and constant references to “rolling” have me making a few guesses about the lfestyle of the creator, a guy who claims to dislike video games. Regardless as to whether anyone at Namco did any inhaling when making this game, the fact is that I cannot stop playing it. Katamari Damacy is wildly addictive. There’s a very strong satisfaction you get when your katamari starts getting big. Once you hit the size where you are big enough that people run screaming from you, there’s a certain Godzilla-like thrill that I can’t recall feeling in a video game before. Rolling a massive ball of buildings, cars, people and everything in between down the street, glomming everything you touch is a joy you should experience rather than trust my word for.

The graphics are basic, silly and cartoonish in a likeable and iconic way. The soundtrack is by far the most original I have ever heard—from Japanese hip-hop to a capella beat-boxing and ambient electronica, I don’t think there’s a stranger sounding game out there.

At twenty bucks from most large retailers, there’s really no excuse not to drop everything and pick up a copy. You’ll be a Katamari maniac in no time, dressing up as the prince and making all kinds of katamari-like food and other assorted homecrafts. Just check the photos tagged on Flickr and you’ll get the idea.

This past weekend I went with eight other guys to a paintball course deep in the woods of Vermont. Our group should have been much larger, but several people canceled as punk-ass bitches tend to do. If you’ve never played paintball, you should know that it hurts, sometimes quite a bit. A direct hit from a paint pellet is similar in pain to being snapped hard with a fat rubber band, like those assholes undoubtedly did to you at least once as a child. The plus side to what seems like an extremely lame thing to subject yourself to is your ability to shoot back. It’s warfare, except no one really gets killed. You get to inflict pain on your friends and let your inner Shih-Tzu run wild. Paintball kicks ass.

After going through the obligatory safety speech and marching out into the courses, we split into two teams of four and proceeded to blast each other to high hell. Since there were so few people that day, the rounds were short and at times anticlimactic, but we tried to make the best of it.

After a few rounds, our referee told us that there was another group of eight people coming onto the courses and asked us if we would like to join up with them. We agreed, but immediately started worrying that we were about to get pasted by a crew of off-duty National Guardsmen or police officers. We waited, resigned to whichever bad-ass might show up.

Much to our surprise, our new opponents were a group of middle schoolers. They crossed onto our course, accompanied by some chaperoning parents with more than a little bit of apprehension in their faces. Here we were, a bunch of early thirties men, sweating, swearing and splattered with paint and these kids were being expected to give up their birthday party paintball games in lieu of getting their asses handed to them by a bunch of surly adults. Awesome.

We’d rented our equipment, so we were all carrying guns that were at the low end of the ass-kicking spectrum. These kids, however, were decked out with weapons ranging from good quality to fully automatic death machine. Some of them were sporting body armor, while others had improvised by stuffing pieces of cardboard underneath their clothing. We had no such accoutrements, only the clothes on our backs and an extra nearly twenty years worth of pent-up rage and disappointment. We were ready to kill.

Our first few rounds had the kids pitted against the adults which resulted in a complete bloodbath since many of them were too chickenshit scared to get shot that they rarely fired straight or at all. It was a thrilling fact that, at the shriveled and defunct age of thirty, I was being given the chance to deliver some serious smackdown on children that when I was at their age, would beat the fuck out of me and toss my ass in a dumpster every day at recess. I made it my calling to terminate their asses with extreme prejudice.

After several one-sided rounds, we split up and created two new teams, evenly mixing it up between kids and adults. This led to better action and some surreal moments of running into some area, knowing a twelve year old has got your back. At times we had to yell at them when, finding themselves blessed with some good cover, they made camp and prepared to hide put until the round was over. I would be getting pinned down, trading fire against two people and the kid next to me would be curled up with his gun lying on the ground.

Still, it was a great time. I walked away with several welts that have now blossomed into some beautiful golf ball sized bruises. Personally I think being able to shoot children with paintball guns may be one of the best things to ever happen to me. The only thing that might possibly top it would be shooting old people or maybe midgets.

After playing off and on for over two years, last winter I finally decided to wean myself away from EverQuest 1, also aptly known as EverCrack.

For those of you not in the know, EverQuest is a MMORPG, or an Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game a.k.a. HFNWC or Heroin for Nerds With Computers. There’s no shame here, daveb waves his freak flag high and mighty. Admittedly, it’s not the best conversation opener if you’re looking to get laid later in the evening. “I have a level 36 Mage and last week, my guild killed two dragons” just really doesn’t do much for girls. But hey, what’s a sex life compared compared to slaying a mythical winged beast?

On Friday, I finally bit the bullet and picked up a copy of EverQuest 2 at a store near my office. No big deal, I thought. I’ll head home, install it, futz with it for a couple hours and then walk away having spent an appropriate amount of time playing and go do something wholesome like ramming splinters under my fingernails or writing angry, illucid emails to the Pope.

The next thing I knew, it was Sunday night and I’d once again joined the ranks of EQ crackheads. I was virtually running all over the place, grouping with other people and slaying all manner of minor creatures. I was working on making potions, scribing spells, making tea, earning money, paying rent on an apartment and all sorts of mundane things, only these things weren’t real outside of the confines of a game server. I’d slept a total of no more than six or eight hours the whole weekend and on upon hitting the street this morning to catch the subway to work, I was taken aback by reality. Shit, I’m thirty, human and I live in the ghetto and cannot grow thistle-like spiked armor out of my skin using arcane means…right.

Fucking EverCrack. At least it’s not like I don’t know a shitload of other thirty-somethings who are completely addicted. Still, being a fan of online RPGs sort of entails you having to relinquish any plausible deniability over the fact that you are a hopeless, gibbering nerd. I feel myself just steps away from the pocket-protector and duct-taped glasses. I have EQ running on one computer and Linux on another with a KDE switch so I can bounce back and forth with ease. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, give yourself a hug and understand that you are indeed a fortunate human being. Just understand that in daveb’s Apartment of Doom, the geek meter registers pretty fucking high and that’s…okay.