Starting out the year
Casual my ass, I’m trying to get to the Holodeck
This is the year of the game, that’s the New Year’s resolution I made. I resolved to play more games in 2006. I resolved to master the game console once and for all and finish King Kong and Perfect Dark Zero on the Xbox 360 because I have a backlog of other games to try on it. I intend to master the controls on my PSP so I can finish Dark Mirror, Coded Arms, and PoPoLoCrois. And I plan on actually having some fear, in the form of F.E.A.R. on my PCs. I haven’t gotten it yet because I’m stuck in Belgium in Call of Duty United Offensive and on some island in the Pacific in Medal of Honor, Pacific Assault. Saving the world in Call of Duty 2 wasn’t enough it seems.
Self destruct
Given my resolution last year to save United Airlines from going out of business (which I’m proud to say I’ve accomplished and it only took Kathleen and me 150,000 flight miles each to do so), I hope to have more time this year to burn what’s left of my retina out searching for monsters, aliens, land mines, and trap doors whilst trying to keep the nose prints off my 21-inch CRT (yes, even though we have a 30-inch 2500 x 1600 Apple display I still use a CRT at 1600 x 1200.) And I intend to become almost totally deaf from the explosions and gunfire delivered through my Creative Inspire 5700 system (that’s on the Intel box) or the Logitech Z-5500 that’s on the AMD FX60 SLI machine. I’ve got the tools to completely destroy my senses and mind, and I’m resolved to give it a go in 2006.
Fact is I’ll fail.
I’ve been trying to master a game controller for a while now, and I still think when you push the joy stick down (forward), your view should look down, not up. But even if I re-map the controls as most games will allow, I can’t keep it straight in my head which control is up-down, left-right, and which is forward, turn. A mouse and WASD is so much easier for my old brain.
I’ll also fail at finishing all the games I want to play even if I disappoint United Airlines a bit. Playing games seems to make others in your life nervous. If I’m into a game for more than an hour, like say just before dinner, there are some tense moments when the family thinks I’m being obsessive and should come and spend time with them. Actually they’d just as soon I didn’t spend time with them, they just don’t seem to want me to be playing games for longer than the flavor lasts in their chewing gum. Into the closet
This makes me a closest gamer to an extent. I’ve tried to explain that it’s not just playing games, it’s research, it’s what I do. I chase pixels, and the games toss two-million of them at me seventy five times a second, that’s a lot of pixels to be chasing, it’s hard work, and I’m working hard at it. But they don’t get it and so I have to sneak. That’s when the Sennheiser headphones get put on, and thank god for surround sound 3-D algorithms.
Seeing double
I have given up on stereo vision though. Man, I really wanted that technology to work, and it came so close so many times, but getting the depth clues right, and displaying real 3D characters that don’t look like cardboard cutouts never seemed to really work. And then there was the flicker. Okay, so the latest units I’ve tried had an honest 60 Hz refresh in each eye, but I still can’t get over the cardboard cutout look and depth cue problems.
