w00t PaWn: Last of Us

I'm trying to get M to tell me some of the details of this video game he's playing. It's called Last of Us? He finds it very annoying to summarize the "complicated" story line. "I guess there's this girl, and she's infected by zombies, and he's immune and some smugglers or whatever help her but the lady gets killed and the guy promises to get her to the scientists and they're just doing their thing." he says.

"Doing their thing????" I say.

"Trying to survive in the wasteland of the United States."

It looks to me like this girl just sneaks around and hides from people. Then occasionally she jumps on some dude's back like a spider monkey and stabs them in the neck! Except one time she was hiding from these people in a gross bathroom? And these guys came in, and she stabbed one of them in the neck, but then some other guys shot her a couple time and she died.  M said the humans are more dangerous than the zombies because they're cannibals.

Cannibalists are just lazy, you know? It's like, eat a goddamn salad, amirite?

 M just got excited because the girl is sneakin' around a pinball arcade. He's really into pinball lately. In fact, he's building his own miniature pinball game out of cardboard and a monitor and duct tape. No joke.

This game is pretty boring from what I've seen. All you seem to do is sneak around and occasionally stab someone in the neck!  Although, I do find sneaking inherently amusing.  Do you know, I am completely unable to sneak up on people?  If I try to do it, I laugh too hard.  I probably wouldn't last too long in a zombie waste-land.  Neither would M, judging by how much he's getting killed in this game.  OH SNAP!  

Here are some sneaking examples that make me laugh:

What in the hell are those kittens sneaking up on?

I just. Can't.  

w00t PaWN: (s)he's a pinball wizard

I have more first hand experience playing video games with ma husband this weekend - you see, I don't *always* write these reviews from the objective and, some might say, "judgey" sidelines, on rare occasions, I get in there myself and tear it up.

We started by playing the demo for Zen Pinball on PS3, which has a few Starwars demos, they were fun so we decided to buy the whole thing.  It's $10 price tag required a few minutes of discussion, until I had the brilliant idea of considering it in terms of quarters, which is 40 quarters, which is not that many in terms of pinball games (.50 cents a game, single player).  So, it was sort of a bargain.

Video pinball games try to imitate the actual play of pinballs - you release the ball and operate the clickers and you can even "bump" the machine, and otherwise the balls follow the Newtonian physics of a regular pinball machine.  The Starwars games adds a few extra elements like a Boba-fett that floats around or a Darth Vader that shows up and tries to mess with you, but generally you just shoot the ball around.  I liked those games quite a bit.

By Sunday we bought another pinball game on the PS3 called Pinball Arcade, which replicates some "classic" (according to M) pinball games (with no fancy stuff like in the Starwars games).  I didn't like those as much as Zen Pinball because they were harder to play and I lost my balls pretty quickly.  I find it very boring to watch someone else play a pinball game, but M seemed to like watching me.  Although, basically whenever I play any video game, he stares at me like someone might admire a monkey playing the piano.

He was quite excited to play some game called Bride of Pinbot, in which there's like a robot lady that "comes alive" as you hit various levels within the board.  I threatened to "whip out some feminist analysis" and he claimed, "It's just a game!" which I countered with "It perpetuates the culture of misogyny!" and that's maybe one of the reasons we don't play too many video games together.   But, actually, I mean, aside from the inherent gender inequalities, we had a really good time.

w00t PaWN: Sleeping Dogs

M is playing Sleeping Dogs on the PS3.  He plays like this gangster guy who is really an undercover cop trying to infiltrate a Taiwanese gang or something?  As far as I can tell, his guy rides around town, then he jumps out of the car and punches people in the face and does some parkour nonsense and then drives some more and punches some more guys.  It's a lot like Grand Theft Auto except in Taiwan.  I'm curious about how accurate the map is. I've never been to Taiwan.

I think the gang is called the "Dogs" or something.  But, honestly, I have no idea.

In this one bit, he runs into some kind of club, sings some KARAOKE (no joke) and then breaks a big fish tank and then picks up a FISH and punches a bunch of guys with the fish.  I was like....

Integrating karaoke is kind of funny but I think it should be a true mix and you have to break out your Garage Band mics and really sing.  Or better yet, the XBox Kinect and do some sick dance moves.  Instead you just move the controller to hit the appropriate key. That's pretty weak, right?

w00t pWn: Zuma

A litte twist, today, on the usual w00t pWn:  I review a game that *I* played.  Yes, my friends, I, too, play video games.  Well, this one game.

It's called Zuma and M first introduced me to it a long time ago because he found out I like this other video game called Puzzle Bobble.  There are a lot of games like Puzzle Bobble in apps so you might have played something like it on your phone - basically you shoot a colored marble at some other marbles of the same color and try to make them fall down.

Anyway, then M got me this game called Zuma a few years ago and I loved it.  You have this little frog guy that shoots colored marbles out of his mouth - and you point them at similarly colored marbles so that they explode.

Describing these games reminds me of talking to my sister on the phone over the weekend, and overhearing beloved nephew say, "Mommy, can I have one of those things that you put in your ear and has like a ball on the ends?"  "QTIP!" I said, "He wants a Qtip and he is a genius!"  My sister said he had somehow innately discovered the true nature of the Qtip because they NEVER put them in their ears (Like I would really believe that. Why else would you even HAVE Qtips?)  Also, my nephew says "like" a lot?  That means he truly is my own nephew.

Well, M bought me Zuma 2: Zuma's Revenge or something like that on the PS3, and it was really fun.  The little frog ponds where you play were quite pretty and there were some "Boss Challenges" or whatever that were fun.

The games gets more and more challenging, and... I must tell you, I am very good at it.  I hardly lost a game.  When the whole thing was over I was kind of surprised.  For some reason, I thought it would go on forever?  I guess I need to restart it or something because I can choose whatever level I want now.

There is basically no way to improve upon Zuma except to remove the possibly offensive Polynesian stereotypical sounds and music that make me cringe a little.  But, otherwise, it is challenging and not annoying.  In short, I wish I could play Zuma forever and no other games existed.  Oy, this game M is playing right now.... wait'll I tell ya...

w00t: Dead Island

So, as previous mentioned, M was playing this game called Dead Island on his PS3.  In it, you play a character who's on some kind of vacation resort island, and suddenly almost everyone turns into a zombie except for you and a bunch of other people.  So, then you gotta run around the island, killing zombies and doing stuff.  I kept asking M, "WHY did everyone become zombies?"  He claimed not to know OR care.  Unsettling.

If you like zombie stuff, you'll probably like this game.  M really enjoyed it.  I liked it OK, but I have to say, it was kind of stupid, it's like, all these zombies?  They're all wearing bikinis.  It's like the whole game is a dumb ruse just to get zombies in bathing suits for some reason.  Then there are these challenges?  So, like, someone will say, Hey, I'll give you 200 bucks if you run across the island and get my handbag or whatever and then it's like... is anyone seriously motivated by US currency in the event of a localized zombie outbreak?  I don't think so.  You'd wanna, you know, figure out how to get off the island, or discover if the virus has spread or whatever.  Nahmean?

If I were playing the game, I would just barricade myself in my hotel room, preferably a suite, hopefully with running water and a little bit of food, and wait for reinforcements.  If the cable still works, great. If not, that's why you have to choose your vacation books carefully, people.  Yeah, you want something that's engaging, but also intellectually stimulating.  Additionally, if you're in a zombie-type situation, you've really got to ask yourself: Why not just join the zombies?  I mean, if it's inevitable, why cause yourself a bunch of unnecessary stress?

Ultimately, something was wrong with M's disk and he got stuck in a wall or something.  He was quite distraught.  He had not killed all the zombies he wished to kill.  Anyway, apparently the game is very "buggy".

Rating:  Only Mildly Unbearable, IF you like zombies.  Watch out for bugs.

video games

Finally, I started feeling a little bit better this weekend!  Enough to leave the house and have dinner out and watch a movie and everything.  We saw Dredd.  It was pretty bad.  In a remarkable twist, M bought ME a video game, and I played it.  Review coming soon.  Also, he has a new video game - here's a brief conversation we had about it.

M: Let's play my video game this afternoon!
K: What? Oh, you mean... together?
M: No, just me.
K: Is it 2 players?
M: No.
K: [makes face]
M: It's called Dead Island.
K: [makes face]
M: Because it takes place on an island.
K: [blank look]
M: and has dead people on it.

W00t: pWn Mass Effect 3

Poor M hasn't gotten much access to the xBox 360 since I've been monopolizing the tv through my 18th century-style illness (minus home-doctor visits or visits of any kind, but with plenty of moaning about End of Life and the Pain! Oh, the pain.)  The only thing that seems to eleviate my (notable) suffering is a stream of British lady crime dramas, between which he occasionally manages to squeeze in this Mass Effect 3 business he's been into recently.  Straight up, I do not like Mass Effect 3 because they use this language from Firefly (yes, that's right, Joss Wedon's doomed, yet critically acclaimed 2002 space-opera television show.)  Namely, "Shepard" and "Reaper", which I find so distracting I can hardly bare it.  

So, it's a FPS (First Person Shooter!) and you can design your own character - what a surprise, M has designed a hot, cyborg lady with blonde hair and giant sunglasses (an homage to his wife, perhaps?)  and she runs around shooting Reapers (gawd).  Seth Green does one of the voices.

As far as I can tell, he spends a lot of time in the menus, doing God knows what.  Switching guns, I suppose.  Or changing outfits.  BTW, there's an old article in the NYT about how much time men spend dressing their characters in video games.  Very interesting.  But, anyway, to my (keen) eye, Mass Effect 3 appears to be very similar to Rage and Killzone, which was pretty similar to Call of Duty.  What I think would really be more interesting would be if the FPS were like a detective?  And she needed to solve a murder while exploring a seaside town on the north side of England.  And she crept around in stone cottages and cleaned out attics and drank tea and called people "Pet".  Sure, she's lonely sometimes but being a woman at her level on the force required a lot of sacrifices.  Shooting is largely unnecessary because she solves her cases with a combination of feminine intuition and trenchant knowledge of the human condition.

w00t Pawn: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

M's been playing this game Skyrim on Xbox for about a month or so now.  As far as I can tell, it's not really about doing or accomplishing anything - you're just this elf guy that walks around this Medieval-y, Lord of the Rings-y type of place and interact with people and forge stuff and like, barter for cheese and special helmets and whatnot.  You know how when I review a game and I'm like, This game kind of sucks because all you do is run around killing things while what would be REALLY nice is if you just walked around and enjoyed the scenery while holding hands with someone you loved?  Well, THIS is that game, except, you don't hold hands with anyone, which I think is a real lost opportunity.

You operate this character who's some kind of Elf, even though you don't really see him because it's first person.  M says this is called a "Role Playing Game".  So, you walk up to people and you scroll through these questions you can ask them and then they say the answers, and then, I don't know, maybe you go to the next village or something?  M been a real sport about jumping in rivers and looking at stuff when I ask him.  Some of the physics in the rivers are screwed up so when you're in the water it's all wonky.  I did some research and apparently later he'll ride a horse up a mountain and it's kind of dopey.  There's this one guy?  And you walk up to him and ask him to sing a song?  And then he stands there are sings a damn epic tale.  That was hilarious.  Eventually he meets up with this lady who for some reason follows him around and grudgingly tells him, "I am sworn to carry your burdens."  I'm not sure what that's all about.  Some of the ladies have giant boobs but not everyone, so it's not the most misogynist game I ever saw.  So.  There's that.

So, it's very pretty, but to tell the truth it's a little boring.  Like sometimes M's character will LITERALLY sit down at a grindstone and sharpen his own knives and shit.  For realz.   And I'm like, What's going to happen next? And M's like, I don't know, I might walk over to that other village.  One time he did fight a dragon though.

For some reason it makes me really antsy when I can't tell when these games are going to be over.  It's like... he could play it forever.  I suspect this is happening...

w00t PaWn: Rage

A few days ago M asked me why I hadn't reviewed his video game and I said, "Because you haven't been playing anything new." and he said he'd be playing this brand new game for several days, with something akin to outrage.  And I was all... Looks like the same ol' crap to me, yo.  But, apparently, it's this new game called Rage. 

If you ask me, it's completely derivative of all the other video games he's been playing lately, it has some FPS* and some driving bits.  I've asked M several times what the story's all about but he's never been able to tell me.  Occasionally some people will talk - I think Danny Devito does one of the voices. 

One day we were walking by a Red Box and I was like, Hey, your game is a movie, too.  But I guess they have games in those Red Boxes. 

this could be anything.

I don't really have that much to say about this game because it's total snores-ville, but M seems to like it.  It has given me multiple opportunities to whip out some Dylan Thomas, so there's that.

Rating: Unbearable and indistinguishable.

*First-person shooter.  OMG, so, it turns out, there's also a third-person shooter style, in which the "camera" view is just over the shoulder.  M was playing Warhamer 40-something and it's in that style.  I quite liked it because frankly I think it's very confusing when it's first person and your guy gets killed or whatever and you're like, WTF just happened?  Nahmean?

w00t Pawn: Deus Ex

M's playing this new video game called Deus Ex that he really likes.  To tell the truth, it's pretty hard to follow and I haven't even been able to get M to tell me what the point is.  As far as I can tell, there's this guy, who's kind of like Robo-cop?  And he semi-against-his-will got some cyber implants or something?  And he's partly machine, I guess.  And, anywho, he has to go around and solve mysteries.

It's mostly one of those sneaking games, and questioning games, where your character walks around and then they meet someone (usually a prostitute, isn't that odd?) and then your guy has the option of having a conversation and you choose what "style" of conversation you're going to have.  The options are usually like, "flirty", "aggressive", "uptight", and "sexually aggressive".   Speaking of, I heard there were some video games out there with good writing, but M sure ain't playin' 'em.  Also, the character is required to "hack" a lot, which means that you take your guy into a room or something, and walk around and "pick up clues" and then you see a safe, and it's like, "Hack that safe" and then you say, Oh, I think the clue's in my memory or something, and then it's like, oh, the safe combo is 8945 or whatever and then you're like, ta da! I hacked it!  But, I mean, seriously.   I think you should have to remember 8945 or whatever.  With your own brain.

Personally, I think these "movie-style" video games are kind of boring.  It's LIKE it's a choose-your-own adventure, but when it comes down to it, it seems like there is only one outcome, and regardless of what you might do, the game is going to make you play it their way until you manage to activate all the little scenes leading up to it's one, inevitable ending.  I think it would be interesting if there really were multiple ending possibilities, like, in one, your cyber-guy might work with one of these prostitutes to enact social change, or, I don't know, ends up volunteering at a dog shelter or something. 

It's Just a Little Unbareable.

w00t Pwn: Portal 2

This time I bring you w00t pwn with first hand knowledge! M & I played Portal 2... together! For a little while. Did you know when you're playing a video game, what feels like 10 minutes is actually 2 hours? It's very disturbing.

Anyhow, Portal 2 is pretty fun. You can play it with a partner, who is your wife, and you and she are like, two robots? And you're in this kind of facility? And, you walk around and try to solve puzzles and stuff. And your husband gazes at you lovingly, as if you are doing something marvelous and not staring slack-jawed at the television trying to remember what button to push.

I quite enjoyed Portal 2, and trying to solve puzzles and whatnot even though it takes a little while to figure out and time slips through your fingers like sands through the hourglass. It's got a voice-over which is truly, truly funny. We smiled at each other and remarked about how it was actually funny, and not completely lame, like most things that try to be funny actually are.

At first I just made my robot follow M's robot around, dutiably adorable, or desperately initiating high-fives (you can do that), or accidentally falling into toxic sludge and getting regenerated while he figured out how to solve the puzzle.

Sample conversation:
Me: What do we do in this one?
Me: Maybe it's that thing.
Me: Look at that thing.
Me: Hey, wait for me.
Me: Oops! I fell in the sludge again.
Me: Where are you?
Me: Ha! That was funny.
Me: It's really funny, right?
Husband: Yeah.
Me: It's weird how it's actually funny.
Me: Right?
Husband: Yeah.
Me: Do you know what to do?
Me: Oops. Hold on. Sludge.
Me: Ok, here I am.
Husband: Oooooo! *I* know what to do!

He concentrates pretty hard. Eventually I figured out how to solve puzzles too. It was satisfying.

He likes the single-player too. I had to quit for a while because I really did get quite disturbed about the alarmingly rapid passage of time. Nevertheless, I rate it Downright Bearable.

W00t PWN: KillZone 3

KillZone 3 reminds me a lot of Call of Duty, or possibly KillZone 2, anyway, I swear I've seen this snowy, industrial landscape before. Maybe it's that dopey scene from Inception, I dunno. Snowy, industrial landscapes are so XMen 3, amirite?

This is exactly the kind of game I don't like because M's guy just shoots the whole time and there are constantly guns going off, and then he'll get shot, and his guy will moan and stuff, and it's very noisy. It makes one regret one's excellent sound system.

I guess approximately half of these people are M's guy's co-workers, but I don't know HOW he can tell who's who, I honestly don't. It's really violent and gives me a headache. *frowny face*

When people die, they go like this: AAAAAARRRRRG! OOOOOGH! AAAARRRRGGGHhhh! Ah! Ah! OoooOOoOOOOOO! Ah, uh... uh.

It's funny, but also sad. Kind of like this.image via

It is Completely Unbearable.

w00t pWn: Dead Space 2

M is playing some demos on the PS3 tonight. It's a bit nerve-wracking because he may choose any one of these horrendous games to play for months and months. And one day I'll probably give anything just for him to play Assassin's Creed again.

One of these games is Dead Space 2, which begins with a really grusome movie-type intro about, I don't know, a space ship and a crash and some zombie-type people. There are always some love interests, but, guess what? They're always dead. Wah Wah. (OH! BTW, did I forget to mention that Veronica Mars AKA Kristen Bell did one of the voices of the love interest/soon to be deceased character on Assassin's Creed? Anyway, she did.)
Ewwww, this game is SO GROSS! So, this guy? In an Edward Scissorhands outfit? He runs around this burntout spaceship or something that's full of zombie-like people who have big long insect arms? And then he shoots their skin off and then kicks their arms and their heads off. And it's very loud and it's like, "BANG! BOOM! CRASH! SPLATTER! BOOM! EEEEMMMMM! IT'S TOO LOUD, KAYA DOESN'T LIKES IT! BANG! WILL YOU TURN IT DOWN A LITTLE, PLEASE??????" Also there's a bunch of crazy beeps and electronic noises of like, machines whirling and ice cold breezes blowing down deserted shafts and nonsense like that.

Do you know what I think would make a really good video game? A game with no shooting, and just like, really quiet sounds of maybe a brook babbling, or like, the Indigo Girls singing, you know, really softly. And if there are any zombies, they don't make any crazy-ass noises like rabid dogs on crack all puking and growling and snarling, they just almost completely silently lurch around and drool, and then, maybe you just quickly and succinctly and without any loud or upsetting noises swipe their heads off, and that's it.

w00t pWn: Assassin's Creed Continues

In case you're wondering why we haven't moved on to a new video game, it's because M can NOT stop playing Assassin's Creed! And, it's been terrible, let me tell you. AND, not only that, but, one day, he DID finish it, and the end was really confusing and lame, but then, what does he do? But he keeps PLAYING it! Now he's playing "multiplayer" and now it's like, he's in Venice, and he and a bunch of other people sneak around and knife folks in the back. It has something to do with Templars and Borgia and some shit.

Demiti Martin has a really funny joke about sneaking.

Important Things with Demetri Martin
Ability - Running a Marathon
www.comedycentral.com

M said he has to hand it to the game because they really made sneaking fun. Whatchudo is sneak all over Venice and other people are sneaking too, and maybe you're trying to assassinate the same person or maybe they're trying to assassinate you. Anywho, you gotta sneak real fast behind them and stab them in the back or cut their throat or twist their neck or shove them off a building (seriously!) and when they or you die, it's in grusome detail with slowmo and a splash of blood and and final grunt. I guess I have to hand it to the game too M is so wrapped up in it he can barely answer my questions, and, for once, this game is finally about assassinating people. But, if you ask me, if this many people got assassinated, there'd basically be no one alive in Venice. Here's a snippet of conversation in our house this morning:
K: Hey, why do those guys glow when you come up behind them?
[Pause]
K: Hey, what's that dust ball?
K: I think it's magic.
K: I think that guy just threw some magic dust. Is that what happened?
[Pause]
K: Oh, you're in St. Marco Square!
K: Can you go in the church?
K: Try to go in the church.
M: I'm busy.
K: Woah! What just happened? Do you have magic dust?
M: I shot that guy.
K: You have a GUN?
[Pause]
K: So, you got a new outfit?
K: Hey, that guy's wearing the same outfit as you.
M: Damn it!
K: Oh, that guy just stabbed you in the BUTT!
M: Nah, he just pulled me off the building.
K: Suck.

W00T PWN: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Husband has been playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (PS3) for a loooong time now with no apparently intention to stop any time soon. In fact, when I said I was ready to write my review, he said, "I haven't even started the multi-player yet!" Pity.

As far as I can tell, in Assassin's Creed you plays this dude in a cape and hood who sneaks around and climbs up the side of buildings, like Spiderman or Jason Bourne. He goes on dopey "missions" in Rome in the 15th century (I looked it up on Wikipedia). The graphics are pretty nifty and I like looking at the city and the buildings. Thank GOD or I would have gone completely bonkers! M is somewhat obliging when I'm like, "Wait, go back and look at that fountain" or whatever. Also some of the characters mutter or shout in Italian like, "Andiamo" or "Scuzi" or "basta" and that's pretty cool. There's actually a TON of Italian in it. Also a lot of the locations are actual places. I wonder how much of the map of Rome is truly accurate? The dopey bits are that there's some kind of weird back and forth in time and like, the main character is actually like this contemporary dude in a laboratory or something? I don't really get it. And the missions are like, Go over there and knife that guy or Help that hooker find out who roofied her. And then later they're like, Drive Leonardo da Vinci's tank around.

You can buy a run-down doctor's shop and fix it up and then when you get stabbed you can go get "health". Or you can buy a tailor shop and have them make you a new cape and hood. You can also buy other stuff like art in a little shop on a side street and choose from any number of Raphael paintings like The Resurrection of the Christ or St. Michael and the Dragon. Ha. Well. I mean. Come on. That's very unlikely.
Also one day he bought the effing COLOSSEUM.

A video game just wouldn't be a video game without a gang of prostitutes. (M corrects me that they are "courtesans") They are actually the assassin's sister and mother! (M corrects me that they aren't actually courtesans, they just run the brothel.) All the courtesans have funny hairdos that make them look like they have kitten ears.

I think it would be a lot more fun if there were no killing and instead you just walked around Rome looking at stuff and visiting your friends' houses and talking in Italian. And maybe if the character had a wife and they went out for coffee and gelato and went to nice concerts at night and stuff.

I would rate this game pretty darn unbearable, at this point. It's never ending. Basta!

W00t PWN: Tron Legacy

Despite poor reviews, husband wanted to play the new Tron video game (PS3) because he's... a huge nerd. He said he doesn't really like it (although he keeps playing it???) and that it's mostly just "running and jumping" like "Prince of Persia only in a Tron universe."

It looks a lot like the movie and it's got some dumb bits with er, Kevin Flynn (aka "The Dude-erino") which looks about as realistic as the "young" Flynn in the movie. That was extremely creepy, in an unfortunate uncanny valley kind of way. The voice in the video game is not Jeff Bridges, and I doubt the audience will be fooled regardless of the frequent repetition of the word "man". I happen to think: If you can't get Jeff Bridges, just forget it (man).

Did you ever hear that rumor about how Jeff Bridges' junk was so big that Disney said he had to strap it down lest he offend? This remains unsubstantiated, mainly because Google searches for "Jeff Bridges Giant ___" are overwhelming. (Here you may imagine me spending a good 10 minutes contemplating whether I'm comfortable with my both my parents and current or potential future employers reading various words for male genitalia on my blog. I finally decide to be conservative on the issue.)

Anywho, as far as I can tell, you run around in your neon jumpsuit and occasionally slash at people with your special frisbee. There's some dreamy ambient music, which is fine, but I'm surprised there's not more of the cool Daft Punk score from the movie. It also seems like there'd be more riding of "light cycles" and "recognizers", although M says it's possible there's more of that later in the game.

I find the game Somewhat Tolerable, mostly because it's fairly quiet and inoffensive.

W00t PWN: Left 4 Dead 2

Husband is playing Left 4 Dead 2, "Swamp Fever" a game about 4 people fighting zombies in a hillbilly town. It is quite unpleasant because, aside from the constant rabid-dog snarling of the zombies, the entire game is punctuated by the sound of shot guns and characters shouting "reloading" for no apparent reason.

One plays "co-op" with three other people (which means, you play with 3 other real people and the computer plays the zombies. Some of the zombies explode acid and some seem to be inspired by that Edgar Allan Poe story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue?

When it comes to zombie lore, most people will agree that the zombie's head must be removed, which makes sense because like, the former human is dead, right? The vessel, as it were, is rotting flesh, presumably unreliant on a highly functioning central nervous system, which accounts for the grunting and the lurching walk, amirite? To merely shot them... so what? They're already dead. But, anyway, in Left 4 Dead 2, you just have to shot them a couple of times.

Have you ever noticed how in most zombie stories, blue collar folks are amongst the few remaining humans who must fight the zombies? Never, you know, former art history students. I suppose the blue collar folks are more likely to have guns or, better yet, sickles. I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about what I would do in case of a zombie attack. Option one is to board up my entire house windows and doors and cower inside with husband and cat. Option two is to steal a boat and wait it out in the middle of Lake Michigan (with husband and cat). Or else, I suppose, row up to Canada (surely impervious to zombie attack?). As far as I can tell, those aren't options in Left 4 Dead 2.

M rates this game "pretty fun" and then he shrugged, non-committally. I rate it Quite Unbearable.

W00t PWN: Kinect Adventures

Because I love my husband so very much and because I'm such a fine wife, I got M an Xbox and Kinect for Christmas (xmas=xbox, see?) He was thrilled, and I quite like it too. When you're playing the Kinect, it's like you're Tom Cruise in Minority Report because you don't have to hold a controller or anything, you just move around and it knows what you're doing (something to do with infared friggin' laser beams?)

Kinect comes with a disk called Kinect Adventures! which has like 4 or 5 little games you can play with a friend. The best one is probably River Rush, where you're standing in an innertube raft floating down some rapids and you have to move right and left and jump around. It's very easy but it's fun and not bad exercise. Another game is called 20,000 Leaks, in which you're standing in a small aquarium for some reason and fish are breaking it, and you have to "fix" the leaks by putting your hands or feet over them. It's sounds dumb, but it's fun.

The best part of Kinect Adventures! is that it takes a picture while you're doing this stuff and it's basically the funniest thing you'll ever see. Then you log on to their website and you can download the pics or send them to Facebook. I only wish they were higher quality images because I love them so much I want to make next years Christmas card out of one.

I would rate this game Good Times - it's great because you don't have to practice - you can just start playing - and you can play with a wide age group of people, and no one really wins or loses, which is nice. It's even fun(ny) if you're just sitting there on the couch watching other people play too.

W00t Pawn: Call of Duty Black Ops

Husband is now playing Call of Duty, Black Ops. M has already played some other Call of Duty game and, to tell the truth, I can't tell the difference. You play this army guy and he goes to some place like a snowy land which even I can tell is the same landscape and house from the other version only snowy, or Havana, which, I'll admit, looks kind of nice, if you take out all the army guys and the flaming buses and whatnot. Frequently I wish I could have a nice character, say, a lovely lady on a bicycle with a baguette or a dog in a basket, and ride around some of these locations without all the shooting and nonsense.
In this Black Ops, as far as I can tell, M gets killed approximately every 30 seconds, but apparently (he explains) that is not unusual. He said there's a "kill to death ratio" and 1-1 is "not bad" and 2-1 is "very good." Frankly, I find it rather disturbing in these games where you get killed and then get "spawned" right away again. Should there not be lasting consequences? I think it would be better if you get killed, then, you just have to sit out the rest of the game, contemplating the futility of war.

You can play "co-operative" against zombies, but M didn't like that mode. He prefers playing with and against for-realsie people (this is called "multi-player.") Between games you can hear the teenagers talking to each other, only, unlike Blur, you can actually make out what they're saying. I could listen to those damn kids all day.

M was quite excited about this featured called "Theatre" where you can re-watch (can you imagine?!?) the fight and therefore improve your technique, sort of like how on Friday Night Lights? They re-watch the football games. We watched a tiny bit of the theatre and discovered that M's character looks a lot like Saddam Hussein. He didn't know what he looks like because it's a "first person shooter." (Do you see how I know all this lingo?!?!)

M informs me that he'll continue playing this games for weeks if not months and that it's "a compelling experience." I rate this game Largely Unbearable.

W00t Pwn: Blur

Husband played Blur for about two weeks. It's a racing game where you either play the game or you can play other for-realsie people online. Or, you can play with your wife, which, a few times, we actually did! I've tried to play racing games before and they're usually really hard to drive and you spend the whole time just trying to turn the damn car around after you drive into the wall or whatever. But, Blur cars were actually pretty easy to steer and when we played I could even finish the race and one time I even came in next-to-last! (W00t!)

One of the lamest things about Blur is that if you play it online, all these dummies have headsets and you can hear their garbled talking and it's really annoying. M had to turn them off one-by-one and it's like, What are they saying? I felt the need to examine their secret, sub-culture language, but all I could make out was the occasional "Dude".

You get to choose your own car although some of the options are really stoopid like a Ford Focus? It would be really cool if you could choose a Hello Kitty car or something like that.

So, there's like these special powers that you drive over and then you can do various things like get a speed boost or shoot missiles or make like a protective shield around your car and stuff. Also, you kind of need to look in your rear-view in case someone's shooting a missile at you, but I think it's really hard to look at anything except my own vehicle as it hurtles down the "San Francisco" loop. Husband is good at looking at that stuff though. I found this game Not Unbearable, although the downsides are the lame chatter from other gamers and the tracks are really repetitive. M says it was "slightly addictive and slightly bland, which is a little bit of a conundrum. Ultimately forgettable."

And that's my first video game review! I expect to be highlighted on Slashdot soon.