GameSpotting/99. Luftballons

Welcome to the latest edition of our weekly editorial feature, where we're partying like it's GameSpotting 99.

Aside from being a forum for cheeky wordplay on '80s pop songs, this is a haven for the GameSpot editors. Week in, week out, we're keeping you abreast of the latest gaming news, telling you what games you should or shouldn't buy, and why. GameSpotting is where we get a chance to tell you what we think and what we feel. And right now there's plenty to talk about, from the Greek tragedy that Half-Life 2 has become to the mind-warping effects of the Tokyo Game Show. So jump in wherever you see fit, take your time, and be sure to discuss the profound emotional impact it's all had on you in our always-civil forums.

Half Drama, Half Life
Sam Parker/Editor, Official Assets
"Here's to hoping that Half-Life 2's gameplay will give us just as much to talk about."

TGS 2003: The Wrath of Coverage
Dave Toole/Senior Producer, GameSpot Live
"The period of time we spend in Tokyo for TGS is hard on our bodies, souls, and minds, but I don't want you to give us any pity."

The Video Games Are the Root of All Society's Problems
Greg Kasavin/Executive Editor
"I just wish someone would do something to stop all this. Can someone remind me again as to why we have elected officials in government offices?"

I Wish I Could Take a Bullet Like Snake
Tyler Winegarner/Associate Producer, GameSpot Live
"If you happen across a Hi-Potion, send it my way. I could use it."

Slanging the ROMs Legally!
Jeff Gerstmann/Senior Editor
"Since I don't have a warehouse I can fill with arcade machines, MAME is probably better than the logistics involved in having the real thing."

Oni Out, Happiness In
Tim Tracy/Associate Producer, GameSpot Live
"To say that the Japanese gaming market is different from what we have in the US is a gross understatement."

Coming Attractions
Ryan MacDonald/Executive Producer, GameSpot Live
"I love hearing, reading, watching, and, in the case of games, playing stories. But I must that admit I love telling them most of all."

Being a Gamer
Brent Phillips/GuestSpotter
"You may think me crazy, but it's the same bond war veterans share. Don't believe me? Read on."

Ready? Fight!
New Challenger/GuestSpotter
"Are you a bad-enough dude to write a column for GameSpot's weekly editorial feature...and save the president, too? Read our GuestSpotting FAQ, submit a column, and then we'll go for a burger! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Half Drama, Half Life

Most moderate- and big-budget games have a fairly conventional lifetime. They're born into the public eye, in an announcement designed to garner some attention early in the development process. They make a series of debuts to show off various features and appear in downloadable demos, at store demo stations or in trailers, and are finally released some six, 12, or 24 months after the initial announcement.

Nothing about Half-Life 2 has been so conventional--not the five-year development, not the fact that Valve has funded the cost of development itself, and certainly not that it's the sequel to a game that has spawned a development community that produces popular add-ons, completely free of charge. But then, that doesn't say much about the game itself--which may be as impressive as the fancy DirectX 9 effects, tactical AI, and robust use of physics seen in demos, or it may not be--since no one outside Valve or its partners has been given a demo of the game since E3.

Where does that leave us? Waiting impatiently for the next big thing, thinking again and again about the E3 footage and just how revolutionary this game just might be. Obviously, those who hacked into Valve's internal network and stole a chunk of the source code and assets for the game weren't interested in waiting. No game developer has been hacked so publicly or had materials from the stolen game leaked so widely.

Suddenly, the debates about the slipping release date or about how the marketing deal with ATI reflects on the graphics card wars took on a new dimension--the moral dimension that makes for great drama. It might seem obvious that stealing something that no one cares about is nowhere near as enticing as getting your mitts on the best thing around. The long summer months spent waiting, the expectation that September 30 was the appointed day, and the belief that this could be the game of the year all worked against people's better judgment. Somebody worked hard to break into Valve's systems, but then, once the files made it into the wild, it was so easy and tempting to take a look. Wasn't it? Activity exploded in message boards around the Web, as rumors about the files spread. People reported information they found in the source code, and screenshots went up to prove some point or another. Anything directly from the stolen source had to be deleted from moderated forums, including our own, but, for an instant, there was a window into the Half-Life 2 mystery.

The business of making games is anything but a game, and the hacking incident has serious financial and legal ramifications. As easy as it might be, looking at information pulled from the source isn't just like reading through plot spoilers. While researching the leak and sifting through Valve's response for a story, I felt as if I was on an ethical edge. As curious as I was to learn solid details about elements of Half-Life 2 that Valve has kept unusually quiet--like how the game starts, what weapons you get, and what the multiplayer is like--a voice reminded me that any such info to be gleaned from the source meant dealing with material that was leaked or, as Valve revealed, "was flat-out stolen."

If the confusion over the release date in September caused a lot of debate and speculation, it was quickly surpassed by questions about the leak's consequences. Voices that wondered why Valve didn't speak up earlier about the need to delay the game or why there was such a disconnect between the publisher's statements and the developer's now have even more to talk about. The stakes are higher now that Half-Life 2 may not even come out this year and now that the leak might just give cheat-makers an inside track on ruining honest players' multiplayer experiences.

But what also changed is the sympathy card. A couple of weeks ago, some might have irrationally called for the game to be released on September 30, complete or not. A few seconds of reflection about how the last weeks of polish could make the game commensurately better should have cured that, but even that isn't necessary. Valve was wronged and the team needs time to get its house in order. Not to mention that some extra attention should go into Steam just as reassurance. Valve's move to gain an extra level of independence by creating its own broadband game distribution service is already bold.

The last six months spent watching Half-Life 2 rampage through the gaming community have been as dramatic as they've been surprising. Maybe the next plot development will be a solid release date. When I talked to Gabe Newell recently, he said he understands that fans really want to be able to plan. After all, some of us will need to upgrade our PCs to get the game to run silky smooth. In the meantime, here's to hoping that the gameplay experience itself will give us just as much to talk about.

TGS 2003: The Wrath of Coverage

It's 3:00am. After a mere three hours of sleep, I'm awake. Not just awake but wide awake, as if it were time to start a whole new day. A few hours pass by and I find myself feeling completely wiped. But I have to make my way into work for another day, and I don't have the time to worry about exhaustion. This has been my nightly scenario since returning from Japan after a grueling week of visiting developers and walking miles upon miles with equipment in hand on the Tokyo Game Show floor. The period of time we spend in Tokyo for TGS is hard on the body, the mind, and the soul. I'm not trolling for pity here, but I do want you to imagine the following scenario in order to get a better understanding of what international trade show coverage like this entails.

Imagine this: You wake up at 7:00am on four hours of sleep, get cleaned up, and hit the street. You take a 10-minute walk, with 30 to 40 pounds of equipment on your back, to Tokyo station, where another 20- to 25-minute walk, through the throngs of commuters, awaits you once inside Tokyo station. Once on the train, you have to spend another 30 minutes in a packed car on your way to Makuhari Messe, the location of the Tokyo Game Show. And that's just getting to the show. Once at the show, you're weaving through the mass of people all day long on the show floor, as well as walking to and from several hotels for interviews and press conferences. Again, this is all while lugging around 30 to 40 pounds of video equipment. Once the show empties out at 5:00pm, you have to backtrack all the way to your hotel room, arriving there at about 6:30pm.

Back in the hotel room, you have only a few minutes to relax, to take a quick shower to get all the Tokyo off you, to maybe get a bite to eat, and then to get to work at putting up content that you gathered during the show. This quickly turns into an all-night marathon. Sitting in front of your laptop, you suddenly realize that it's 8:00am, and you need to get cleaned up and head back to Makuhari Messe for another round.

What makes day two really special, though, is that the show floor is open to the public, whereas the show is open only to media and invited guests on the first day. Now, the crowd is several times bigger, so making your way is an even bigger challenge, and there are still more trips to hotels to be made for interviews. Once the day is over, it's back to the hotel to work on putting up more content until around 2:00am when sleep is finally an option.

In the end, you spend over 40 hours walking around with over 30 pounds of equipment on your back, conducting interviews, traveling, and putting up material on the site--all without a wink of sleep. Now, instead of just imagining that scenario as a crazy little fantasy in your head, realize that this is exactly what my routine was like during TGS Fall 2003. And that's just two of the eight days we spent in Tokyo. It does not include the other days where we traversed Tokyo and visited developers in an effort to provide you even more awesome coverage for the future.

Interestingly, while you're in Tokyo, the 40-hour runs don't really seem that bad. It's not until returning from Tokyo, when you get drop-kicked by the jet lag and the lack of adrenaline, that you bottom out. Sleeping patterns are backward, muscles are worn out, and minds can't think straight. Simply put, your body chemistry is off. And you know what? It's all worth it for what we're able to accomplish, though I do hope to get back to a normal routine sooner rather than later.

Again, I'm not looking for pity here. What I hope is that these accounts of the intensity of my experience in Tokyo give you a better understanding of what we go through, and maybe they'll give you a deeper appreciation of what it takes to provide you the best coverage there is anywhere.

The Video Games Are the Root of All Society's Problems

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The Video Games are the Root of All Society's Problems

From: cncrndparent3231
Date: 10/12/2003
Time: 3:32pm

I don't even know where to begin, but I do know this: The video games are the root of all society's problems.

Take my children. So Jamie and I, we're huge movie buffs and also are very active in the local PTA. As such, we employ a babysitter--let's call her Beckie--who, I should add, came very highly recommended by a friend of my wife's best friend and who always showed up on time and never asked for payment at the end of each week--even when we'd sometimes forget to pay. Anyway! So last week, Jamie and I rush off to see Lost in Translation (and, by the way, this is the best film of the year, bar none), leaving Beckie behind to look after little Austin and Savannah, ages 12 and 9, respectively.

You can't imagine how horrified we were when we got home at around 11:30pm that night. This was a Thursday and Austin should have been sound asleep after doing his homework, while Savannah--well, she just should have been sound asleep! Honestly, I knew something was wrong before I even opened the front door. I could hear the television on too loudly, and, sure enough, there they were: Beckie, Austin, and Savannah. They were all playing the video games! What I saw on the screen was deplorable. A car was exploding as a burning man, without a head, flung himself into a river. Police officers desperately tried to control the situation. All the while the children were laughing.

I did what any self-respecting parent would have done in that situation: I stormed over to the television and pulled the plug. Austin and Savannah were ordered to their rooms, and Beckie was ordered to leave. That's the last time we'll be requiring your services, I let her know. Before she left, Beckie took whatever that trash was that she was forcing upon my children, and it's a good thing she did because it would have gone straight in with the other trash if she hadn't. This girl is 17 years old, so, frankly, I was appalled that someone of that age could be so irresponsible in handling these two young children. I could only imagine what else might have gone on in my absence. I didn't get more than five hours of sleep that night, worrying about it.

The video games are garbage. They teach our children to ignore the serious aspects of life and encourage them to laugh at them, even. Rather than study or watch an educational program, the children of America are staring blankly at the video games and practicing how to kill, like those two young men who sniped those people in Baltimore last year. Three years ago for Christmas, I made the mistake of purchasing what's called a Sony PlayStation for Austin. He quickly got bored of the game that came with it. What an extraordinary waste of money! I can't believe this scheme has gone on for so long. Many of the other parents in our group feel the exact same way, as evidenced by the typical discussion in one of our Monday evening meetings.

I love my children very much. All I do is think about their happiness and well-being, which is why I know that the video games must not be a part of their lives.

When I was Austin's age, I was already on the swim team and the basketball team. Austin is very smart for his age and enjoys reading, which is why I'm terribly concerned that so much of his time also goes into playing the video games. Make no mistake--there are no video games in our household. But I know that the reason he stays late at his friend's house is because he's over there playing those games.

I fear that poor Savannah, who's too young to understand right from wrong, is being pulled into the same trap. Though she and Austin used to fight all the time, now it's like the two of them have one mind when it comes to this garbage. Sometimes I worry so much, I feel like I'm already too late, and that they've both been brainwashed. Now they just talk all the time about this shooting game or that one and laugh at things I don't understand. Next week, my psychologist will meet with them to try to get to the bottom of this.

There is simply no time for the video games in the life of a young child, who should be out playing with his or her friends, learning new things, exercising, and having fun. I heard there was a study that the video games promote a sedentary lifestyle. Austin now weighs 93 pounds, and, for a boy who's 5 feet 3 inches tall, I think that's definitely a bit overweight. I, for one, won't be sitting idly by while he ruins his life like this. What little girl would be attracted to a pudgy little video-game-playing miscreant? I tell him this, but he won't listen and just rushes off to play the games with his friends. The nerve of him! As soon as I get the phone number of his friend's parents from the students' directory (no big surprise, they don't attend PTA meetings!), they'll be hearing from me.

A friend of mine from the office claims that her husband plays the video games. He's a software programmer, or something, and probably collects children's toys. But even so, I find it difficult to imagine what anyone could see in this garbage. I hardly ever watch television anymore (things are busier than ever!), but I couldn't possibly imagine sitting in front of it for two or three hours at a time like my friend's husband. I just wish someone would do something to stop all this. Can someone remind me again as to why we have elected officials in government offices?

In any case, I hope I've made myself clear here. The video games are rotting the minds of our children, and I have nothing more to say.

I Wish I Could Take a Bullet Like Snake

I'll get this right out of the way: It's a bit tougher to bust one of these out this week because I'm only typing with one hand at full effectiveness. That's worth bringing up because the reasoning behind it is core to my topic this week, so it's more than open season for commentary. Last week I had my first unfortunate meeting with another vehicle on the road, which is a nice way of saying that a stopped car opened a door in front of my motorcycle on my way to work, leaving my hand (and fortunately only that) in slightly less than tip-top typing shape. The good news is, other than being somewhat distracting, it hasn't totally wrecked my game in the video department, and, by the time you're reading this, I'll be looking forward to having all 12 stitches out on the following day. But I digress.

However, there's one thing that this unfortunate meeting of metal and flesh has brought to the forefront for me. It's that the gun-toting, cigarette-smoking, vampire-killing, freedom-fighting, silent-assassinating, combat-evolving, second-running, and pro-skating personas I take on, on a daily basis, are some pretty tough hombres. No fooling! I stumble away from a pretty low-speed crash with a mere deep gash on my left index finger, and I'm shaking on the curb the whole time the police are making the accident report. My main man, Chris Stone, flinches off the bullets of machine gun fire while running to a burning car to get medical assistance to a downed comrade. No one gets left behind. I wish I could do that. I wish I could take a bike wreck with the style and grace of Tommy Vercetti. I wish I could bail on a skateboard like Jamie Thomas. I wish I could bounce back from serious injury by wolfing down a nice turkey dinner. I wish I could take a bullet like Snake.

I'm serious. I've tried everything. I apply a medical kit to this every night. I've drunk every mysterious green fluid I can get my hands on--short of antifreeze. I've collected hearts, had an extra helping of mushrooms, and drunk tons of energy drinks. I don't know how to cook a turkey, but I've been ordering more turkey sandwiches than I usually do, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Viewtiful Joe has done a great job of reminding me of the healing powers of burgers, but I think it's mostly effective as a comfort food rather than yielding any medical benefits. This cut isn't getting any smaller, despite my efforts, however. In the long run, my health bar probably only got chopped down a notch or two, but it'll be weeks before I'll be able to type normally again, let alone ride my motorcycle.

I guess that's the nice thing about being a video game character. You can throw yourself in the face of danger, be set afire, get impaled on spikes, get shot at a few times, and drink some poison. Just snack on some canned rations, and you're back in your prime--ready to rock. But then, being human makes for a better learning experience overall. Wearing this splint on my finger all the time is giving me plenty of reminders of how my accident could have been avoided. Some folks will argue that games, particularly action titles, should be a lot more realistic, but I can't really agree. Reality is fun in its own right, and it's held in high regard by the editors here. But if I wanted to play a game as a guy who runs slowly, jumps lowly, and is poorly skilled in the ways of firearms and would be dropped by a single measly bullet, I'd realize I could do it pretty cheaply and live my own life. But, please, if you happen across a Hi-Potion, send it my way. I could use it.

Slanging the ROMs Legally!

Well, it's finally happened. After years of people wondering what it would take to offer emulation in a pure, yet legal form, a company has come out of the woodwork and started selling ROMs, which are basically binary dumps of the chips that make things go. In this case, these things are arcade games.

Though Hanaho has been offering some of Capcom's arcade games in ROM form for a while now, as part of its emulator-friendly joystick package, this new company, StarROMs, is simply selling the games outright. The service is just getting off the ground, but the infrastructure seems pretty cool. Basically, it seems to work in a similar fashion to recent downloadable music sites, like Apple's iTunes service. Your account will have a number of credits associated with it. You can purchase more credits at any time, and the games on offer all have a different credit cost associated with them. Games that don't really emulate terribly well--like 1979's Atari Football (which used a trackball that you had to be pretty rough with to succeed)--can be legally purchased and acquired for 8 credits, or $2. The classics, like Missile Command, Asteroids, and Tetris, go for $6. Though we haven't checked this out for ourselves, the company claims that "a large percentage of the proceeds" go to the game's copyright holders, which, in this case, would seem to be The Atari Formerly Known as Infogrames and The Atari That Was Purchased by Midway--judging by the games currently for sale. The company also claims to want to support emulator developers, which is also a nice touch. Those guys on the MAME team (as well as a lot of other emulator authors out there) devote a lot of time to making emulation a reality, and they deserve as much credit as they can get.

I'm superexcited about classic gaming, but this is a much more exciting development than, say, your average retro compilation. Why? Because MAME is amazingly better than any of those collections. With MAME, I'm running the actual arcade games, right down to the dip switches and startup tests. That stuff is usually cleaned up and turned into a pretty menu when it's repackaged for modern consumers, but what can I say? I like it grimy. I like it real... Well, OK, "real" would be an actual arcade machine, but this is the next best thing. In fact, since I don't have a warehouse I can fill with arcade machines, MAME is probably better than the logistics involved in having the real thing.

Now, assuming this company is on the up-and-up, I can only hope that StarROMs makes deals with more copyright holders and begins to offer more games, because this, like the initial success of Apple's downloadable music store, is an important first step. Prior to this (and to a lesser extent, Hanaho's Capcom deal) the only way to get these games and use them on your computer was via piracy. There still really isn't a way for the average joe (meaning someone who doesn't own all these arcade machines already, and, thus, the rights to dump the chips for personal use) to legally use most of what MAME offers. Considering that the alternative is for these games to keep on getting pirated, it really makes sense for a lot of these copyright holders to either partner with a company like StarROMs or find a way to sell these games on their own. This obviously won't stop piracy in its tracks (just as there is still plenty of MP3 piracy going on even though there are several legal ways to download music now), but it's a huge first step in the right direction. If there's no legal alternative, then the piracy continues unchecked. If people can pay small fees for the right to own and use these ROMs, then at least there's the potential for companies to be making some money on these classic titles.

This whole idea is still in its infancy, but I can't help but dream of a day when I can pay a few dollars for the rights to, say, a handful of superobscure NES games. Here's to hoping.

Oni Out, Happiness In

I know it's been a while since we last spoke. Can you forgive me? As usual, things have been crazy in the corner of the office we call GameSpot Live. It's officially the fourth quarter now, which means we'll soon be inundated with more games than we'll know what to do with. Aside from bracing myself for the deluge of holiday titles, I also just got back from my first trip to Japan for this year's Tokyo Game Show, and, almost a week later, I'm still reeling from the jet lag and the culture shock.

To say that the Japanese gaming market is different from what we have in the US is a gross understatement. While the TGS floor was packed with incredible games that we'll get our hands on soon enough, we'll never ever get the chance to play a very large percentage of them--for various reasons. Whether they're based on manga and anime that we haven't seen on our side of the Pacific, there's a wealth of platformers and four-player brawlers that we have little chance of seeing. Two games really stood out for me in this category, simply because I've been exposed to their source material in the US version of Shonen Jump. Bandai had a pair of games based on Naruto and One Piece that were tons of fun. They were both in the vein of Power Stone. While the anime for One Piece has been licensed by FUNimation for the US market, it hasn't made an appearance here yet, and to date, no one has picked up Naruto. I can only hope they both catch on so they have some chance of making their way over here. On a similar note, I was also equally impressed by ChainDive and Siren, both of which were really popular at Sony's booth. While ChainDive reminded my somewhat of Nights with a splash of Zone of the Enders, Siren looks like it could be the next game to truly get under my skin and scare me half to death. I really hope that SCEA will bring them both stateside.

Aside from these games, there were more than several baseball games on display. Sega had an incredible-looking cel-shaded baseball game, developed by Smilebit, as well as several other games scattered around the show floor. In these cases, the games featured teams from the Japanese professional leagues, so, of course, we'll never get our hands on them. On a side note, it was really strange to watch highlights of American baseball on Japanese television. Of course, they only showed what Nomo, Iishi, Matsui, and Suzuki did the day before. Japanese baseball is another story altogether. Call me crazy, but I honestly think that Japanese baseball is more popular in Japan than American baseball is in the United States.

The last, but certainly not the least, of the games that we have little chance of playing in the US are the ones that fall in the "Crazy Japanese" category. While it's easy to dismiss these games as "strange," we just can't form any point of reference for them because they're deeply rooted in everyday Japanese culture. The game that stole the show for me was a rhythm game called Kumauta, which was on display right next to Mojib-Ribbon, which is also equally "different." In Kumauta, at least from what I could gather, you find a baby polar bear, teach him how to talk, and then you teach him how to sing Japanese Enka ballads, which he does using a synthesized voice that's simply otherworldly. To be quite honest, I probably watched the trailer around a hundred times while I was locked in my hotel room putting up movies during the show. Taking a close second place was a game from Namco in which you roll a ball around a city picking up garbage and stuff until you finally make it large enough to pick up buildings and cars.

In all, Tokyo was an incredible experience. Just to be in a city completely unlike any other I've ever visited was amazing. Tokyo is a city that moves at the speed of light and rarely slows down for anything. I feel privileged just to have been able to experience it, but I'm also very glad to be home again. I can say, without any shadow of a doubt, that I'll be itching to go again next year, and this time I'll be sure to bring more spending money and an extra suitcase.

Coming Attractions

The power of storytelling has been something that I've been personally interested in for a very long time. I love hearing, reading, watching, and, in the case of games, playing stories. But I must admit that I love telling them most of all.

The GameSpot Live crew and I have been working on many stories over the past few weeks, since, in addition to our regular workload (not to mention TGS) we've been working on our next DVD. It's a gift guide that identifies GameSpot's picks as the best ones to get this holiday season. Plus, we crammed in all kinds of really cool stuff, like developer interviews, video previews, the latest game trailers, video game hardware 101, game guides, and hidden extras. It's another GameSpot Complete To-Go DVD, which, for those of you counting marks, is our third DVD. While it may seem like making a DVD is a difficult task, in all honesty, it's not a whole lot different from what we do here at the site every day. By this I mean that we try to put just as much care in every video piece we produce for the site as we do for each DVD. I guess the only difference is that you can do a few more things when editing for television viewing than you can do online, due to the frame size and quality. Plus, it's just way more mind-blowing to see games on a real television screen. Without a doubt, this has turned out to be our best disc yet. We've got a great lineup of games, a ton of content, and some really interesting stories that we got from developers. The disc, and more details on it, will hit later this month.

In related news, this is a huge month for DVDs in general. The Matrix: Reloaded, the Indiana Jones trilogy, and, of course, Scarface are all DVDs that come out this month. I hadn't seen Scarface in a really long time and totally forgot that it's basically Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: The Movie. You've got the chainsaw, most of the weapons, some of the missions, some of the music, and tons of familiar structures and interior designs.

Speaking of designs, shouldn't I be off playing Half-Life 2 right now? Why has the most anticipated game release of all time instead become, yet again, another delayed game fiasco? Last night I was watching Fox News, and a wicked-long blurb in the Fox News ticker about the recent code leak of Half-Life 2 scrolled across the bottom of the screen. It even went so far as to explain what the code was and that it wasn't the actual game, but rather, it was a blueprint that couldn't be put together since it didn't have all of the pieces. The media coverage surrounding the code leak, the delay of the game, and the speculation as to why all of these events are happening is just unprecedented in the gaming community. Just go look at any game forum, and you'll see that each one has a giant thread filled with conspiracy theories explaining exactly what is happening. Everyone claims they know "a guy" or they work at Valve themselves, but the bottom line is that only our friends at Valve actually know what is happening and when the game will come out. Not knowing is truly the hardest part, but, at some point--hopefully sooner rather than later--we'll all be playing what looks like the coolest game ever. I am just crossing my fingers and hoping they pack in CS2 as an extra special surprise.

Being a Gamer

"Only a gamer knows what it feels like to be out of mana." - Greg Kasavin

I love Greg. I love Greg like I love Tie Fighter. You want to know why? Because he's a gamer. You know what else that means? It means I love you! That is, unless you're one of those people who cheats at Counter-Strike; then all of you have been stricken from the love roster. The rest of you are my brothers (and sisters). We are a society. Not a society brought together by a common belief, like the NRA or the like, but a society brought together by common experience. You may think me crazy, but it's the same bond war veterans share. Don't believe me? Read on.

Most gamers have fought Diablo. Most gamers have fought Sephiroth. All gamers have fought Bowser. And only gamers have fought Diablo, Sephiroth, or Bowser. There's no Venn diagram here. If you jumped on Bowser or got toasted by Diablo, you're a gamer. What does that mean? It means that you can walk up to any other gamer, and there's a good chance they'll know what you're talking about. You say something like, "I didn't sleep last night because I was trying to get my body back from Lynx," and they might not have played Chrono Cross, but they damn well know what you're talking about. They don't have to have played the exact game, but they know the feeling. They've been out of mana. It's the shared experiences that bond us.

We've all played the fool when other kids said video games were stupid. We've all wondered why they didn't just use a phoenix down on Aeris. We're all outraged when senators say games have no merit. We've all said "Yes, Mom, I did my homework," when we meant, "I'll do my homework if I finish playing Half-Life for the third time." We've all lived lives that weren't our own, and we've all lived the same lives that weren't our own. It's like we all wake up from the same great dreams every morning. This isn't just for single-player games. We've all been shot by a "camper." We've all been annihilated by an expert when we first started. We've all played with 56k and wished it were broadband. But I've always thought the best memories, and the ones that created the best bonds, were the blend of single-player and multiplayer co-op.

I think my greatest co-op experience was in Rogue Spear. Mission 2 has something to do with an oil tanker, and there's a command deck really far away from the start zone where you can see two terrorists. If you snipe number one, number two will blow the tanker. If you snipe number two, number one will kill the hostages. So what do you do? I called up my buddy, and we did a countdown over the phone and simultaneously sent those dirty terrorists to their maker. It was the same thing in Counter-Strike. I'd bust into a room and take out one guy, and, while the other turned his auto-shotgun-of-death my way, my teammate would snipe him in the nick of time from the window (with a scout). That just makes you a special kind of warm inside.

When I saw Fight Club, and they talk about everyone knowing the other by the scrapes and bruises and just silently nodding, I thought of you, my brethren, sporting not bandages but sleepless eyes. Maybe we should start an army. Lord knows we could handle hordes of aliens if they ever decided to attack when we had chainguns!