Defending The Dark Knight

*Warning, the following contains major majors spoilers for "The Dark Knight". Do not read this post unless you have seen the movie. Also, several of the sites and or videos I link to may contain harsh language. Be advised.*

Guess what? I like Batman. A lot. I've said this before, but what I'm not sure if I've said is the fact that The Dark Knight is my all-time favorite movie. That's right, The Dark Knight, is my favorite movie. Ever.

Now, I suppose many of you find it odd that the blog post is titled "Defending The Dark Knight" when the film was both a critical, and box office success, which is like saying that World War II was a minor scuffle. The movie made a billion dollars. That is a metric crapton of money. The film has a 93% rating on IMDB, and a 96% rating from the users of the site. The film is one of the biggest film success stories ever.

So why would the film need defending? Because, some people have criticized the film, pointing at a few supposed weak points, and claiming that the film is an overrated disaster because of it. Well y'know what, no. I am going to tell you exactly why this is my favorite film of all time and why most (though not necessarily all) of these criticisms are invalid. Why? Because I can darn it. I will do this by justifying and explaining my opinion to the most important elements, and common criticisms of the film.



1. The Plot
This is the biggest one, so let's get it right off the bat. (No pun intended.)

Some people have claimed that the plot is non coherent, and has major plot holes in it. Many people have said that while the dark tone is good, the writers left a few ridiculous plot holes in it. The most pointed to plot holes are conveniently given in song form in the following video.

*Caution, some harsh language*


Sigh.... Alright, let me start by saying I love this video. I really do think this video is a quite funny. But, I also think it completely misses the point of the ENTIRE FILM.


"And The Joker pulls crimes in such an orderly manner, he must write it down in an evil day planner. His henchmen are Psycho and expendable, and yet they're completely dependable."
This is the complaint I hear the very most about the movie. The Joker's plot. By all rights, in order for the plot to work right, he would have to had known how EVERYTHING would unfold from the start, a feat that would require nothing short of clairvoyance.

Now, I honestly would agree with this, and this would take away from my absolute love of this movie if it wasn't for ONE FACT. One line. You can find it in this clip (0:51). It's the one line that ties the entire film together. "Do I look like a guy with a plan?"

The Joker's "plot" seems disjointed, as if he couldn't possibly have been plotting it the whole time, because he WASN'T. He was playing it by ear. He was improvising.

The most plan he ever had, was for one step at a time. He had a plan for the bank robbery. Once he robbed the bank, he decided to go tell the mob he was going to kill Batman. And from that point on, he played it by ear. One. Step. At a time. His plan wasn't to corrupt Harvey from the beginning. His "plan" really was to just kidnap the both of them. He kidnapped Rachel and Harvey, rigged them both up, and decided to see what happened. And guess what? Harvey lived.

So he took advantage of that.

Then he saw what happened.

The Joker is an agent of anarchy. People are completely missing the point of the character to criticize his plot for being too random.


"And why is Morgan Freeman all ****ed at me? He seemed to resign kinda randomly. It's OK to build me an armored tank car, but OH tapping phones, that's going too far."

The difference between building an "armored tank car" as they put it in the song and the Bat-Vision that he uses at the end of the film is an invasion of privacy. The difference between building someone a large powerful vehicle, and a machine that can literally allow you to see everything everywhere is BIG. The Bat-Vision was an invasion of privacy. Morgan Freeman's character, Lucius was disgusted by the fact that Batman would, in his opinion, finally cross the line he's been treading on so closely for so long.

"And what about Ms. Dawes? It's like you forgot her!"
I don't get this, I felt they showed Bruce's mourning of Rachel very well, and kept the relationship really well done for the entire film.


"How does Harvey Dent do a total 180? Well he barbecued his face, and he lost his lady."
This one actually answers itself, but I want to elaborate on this. The point of the way Harvey changed into Two-Face is because it shows that The Joker has won. After everything they tried to do, The Joker was still the winner. The Joker just wanted to show that his philosophy was true. The Jokers philosophy is that one bad day is enough to turn the best men among us into psychopaths like him. That's the point of his "ahead of the curb" line in the interrogation scene. That's the point of turning Harvey. By turning Harvey he proved that Harvey Dent, Gotham's White Knight, who's entire campaign for the DA position was "I believe in Harvey Dent", could be turned just as crazy as himself, after just one bad day.


"And how did you have time to rig up both of those boats?"
The Joker has hundreds of Henchmen, and it's implied that most of the cops in the city are under his payroll. Somehow finding time to put some barrels on a boat doesn't seem so impossible to me.

"Like why the **** did I agree to take the rap, Harvey Dent killed those people, who gives a crap?!"

This is the biggest one. Why would Batman take the blame for all the murders Harvey Dent committed? Simple. Remember how I said The Joker won? They couldn't let the city believe that. Harvey was more than just a public figure, he was seen as Gotham's LAST HOPE that good men still existed in Gotham. Also, remember the line about how all those mobsters wouldn't be convicted any more if Harvey crossed a line? Well, I'd say multiple homicide crossed a few lines, wouldn't you?

So I've defended the films plot. So what makes the film my personal favorite movie?

2. Heath Ledger's The Joker
The Joker in this movie, played by the late Heath Ledger, is one of the best performances ever captured on the screen. Heath Ledger gave life to this character unlike anything ever seen. Now don't get me wrong, I love other incarnations of The Joker character, and in fact, Mark Hamil is in my opinion the definitive Joker (his voice acting is incredible in every instance he's done the character.) but Ledgers version of the character is completely DIFFERENT from any other.



It's dark, it's creepy, it's just... So good. In fact, a lot of people say the reason for Ledger's tragic death was partly because of this performance.

He took the character and made it his own. This version of The Joker just stole the screen, in a way that is rare for a character to do. The Joker is already such a great villain, and Ledger both completely changed him, and kept him true to his roots. Part of this is in the way his backstory is explained multiple times, in conflicting ways. Part of it is just the insanity of Ledger's performance. Part of it is from that magic trick. Thankfully he did get best actor for this performance, despite the film getting snubbed even so much as a best picture nomination it most certainly deserved. Either Way, Ledger's Joker is one of the main reasons this film is so great.


3. Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent



It's almost a shame Ledger was so good, because he completely overshadows a fantastic performance by Aaron Eckhart, an actor I had not heard of before The Dark Knight. Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent, the DA of Gotham was not only perfect for the character (in my mind, he owns this role now) but he tied the plot together perfectly. Some people have complained that Two-Face was only in the movie briefly, but that was partly the point. Two-Face wasn't the villain of the movie, Dent was one of the heroes. And to see him changed into a villain over the course of the film was great. I loved the line in the beginning about either dying a hero, or living long enough to see yourself become the villain. It was a really good line.

Plus you could really feel his pain when Rachel dies, and totally understand why he became Two-Face. I loved his performance in the film, and I really think he could have been strong enough to carry the movie if it had focused on just him instead of Ledger's Joker as well.

4. Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne

Note that I say his "Bruce Wayne" and not his "Batman". This is because while he was a FANTASTIC Bruce Wayne, he was only an adequate Batman. I mean, he wasn't BAD as Batman, although he did go a tad overboard on the rasping, but man, he blew Bruce Wayne out of the park in my opinion. Honestly, if he hadn't been as good a Bruce Wayne I would've disliked the casting, but as it is, he's a great Bruce Wayne, and an... Ok, Batman.

5. The Setting

The Dark, edgy setting of the film really helps knock this movie out of the park, and make it my personal favorite. It was mostly shot in Chicago, and man, the city looks amazing. You can just see the dark crime side seeping out of every facet of the city. Even the jails manage to look corrupt and evil.



Overall, because of these reasons, and just because of some really strong writing, and directing, I consider The Dark Knight to be my personal favorite film. Why? Because it's freakin' awesome. That's why.

Graphic Novel Review: The Long Halloween

I've covered my love of Batman before. More than once. So, it may shock people when I say I've never read the comics. Like, at all.

Well, I haven't I love Batman, but I've never read the comics. I've just never really been able to get into comics. Something about the format doesn't appeal to me as much as it does to a lot of other people, only getting one chapter of the story a month, I dunno, I've never been able to get into them. Perhaps I will some day, perhaps not.

The other day however, I purchased a used copy of "The Long Halloween" graphic novel, from a nearby bookstore. And the graphic novel format appeals to me a LOT more than the comic format.

For those who don't know, a graphic novel is basically just a collection of a complete series in one tome when a series has run it's course. "The Long Halloween" for example was a 13-part storyline that ran in 1997.

The comic begins with some quick plot exposition. Carmine "The Roman" Falcone (A name that may sound familiar to fans of The Dark Knight, who haven't read the comics, such as myself.) is a mobster who essentially controls Gotham. His "Roman Empire" rules the city with fear, and an iron fist. Much to the dismay of three of the only good men left in Gotham, Jim Gordon who is one of the last good cops in Gotham, Harvey Dent the Gotham District Attorney, and of course, Batman. And so the three make a pact to take down Falcone. Gordon makes sure to tell the two others that they "Can bend the rules, but [they] can't break them."

This pact is put to the test, when a criminal nicknamed "holiday" begins picking off Falcone's men one at a time, each murder on a holiday. What follows is an exciting murder mystery that will not only keep you guessing, but features a large portion of Batman's rogue's gallery. The Joker, Poison Ivy, Solomon Grundy and many more are all featured in the story arc spanning over a year.

This murder mystery itself is interesting, and all of the characters involved in the mystery are fleshed out in a way that gives almost every character in the comic motive, and the murders themselves are shown in a way that you never know who it is until the very end.

The art is gorgeous, the characters all feel very much like themselves, and... Well... It's Batman!

The only shortcomings are that with as many of the villains as are featured, a few of them feel a bit wedged in, as though they were just trying to get the villain into the arc somehow, when it really would have been better without them in it. Particularly Poison Ivy. She appears for all of 5 or 10 pages before disappearing into obscurity. However, this is a minor complaint, as a lot of the villains were given their due, while still focusing on the Holiday murder plot line.

And the Holiday murder plot line is extremely well done. It not only kept me unsure of who Holiday was until the very end, but even at the very end it surprised me. More than once, actually. There was one detail I was a bit sketchy on, which I can't mention without giving away a MAJOR plot point, but overall it was still an extremely well done plot line.

Overall, The Long Halloween is a great graphic novel that's most definitely worth your time.

Now It's Time for Your Real Purpose.

Oh heck yeah.

Old Weather Flying Isn't Cool Guys!

Sigh. Blizzard, I really really want to love World of Warcraft, and for the most part, I do. I think it's a great game. It's definitely not art, but hey, it's a fun game.

But then you do thing like this.

"We’ve added a new flying skill called Flight Master's License. When World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is released, players who purchase the expansion will see this skill available from flight trainers for 250 gold once they reach level 60. This new skill is required for flying around all Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms zones, including the new level 80-85 zones."

Sigh. Alright, now I know a lot of the people who read this don't play WoW, so let me explain why the above statement is really, REALLY, irritating.

So, in World of Warcraft, as you level up, you get mounts. These are various creatures you can ride around on, ranging from the natural, Horses, to the more exotic, like Raptors. At level 20 you can get the basic one, which makes you move 60% faster. Then at level 40 you get the armored "epic" ones, which double your speed.

Then at level 60 you can get Flying Mounts.



Now, these mounts, apart from being even faster, allow you to, as the name implies, fly! Hooray! This makes flying over enemies you don't need to fight a possibility, and makes the leveling up experience much easier, and faster. Also, some of them look awesome.

Then, at level 70, you lose the ability to fly again.

To be more specific, you can only fly in Outland, one region of the game, and Northrend, the level 70-80 area, is too cold. But it's ok, because at level 78, you can learn "Cold Weather Flying" for only 1000 gold! Yaaay!

Ok, so, this is annoying, but understandable. When Wrath of the Lich King, the expansion that added Northrend, was released, Flying mounts were not obtainable until level 70, and they didn't want people skipping the 70-80 experience by flying over it. I get that. They should have made you learn it from a quest or something instead of making it and expensive ability to learn, but whatever. The cost was a gold sink. What is a gold sink you ask?

Well, the way a normal economy works is that there is a finite amount of money, and more is created at a controlled rate. As more money is slowly created, we have to deal with inflation. But, inflation is also stopped by the way that money, over time, decays. Something like 90% of the US Dollars that are printed every year are replacing money that was destroyed in the previous year.

But, the way a GAME economy works is not nearly as easy. There is an unlimited number of, well, everything. Money? A small amount of money is generated every time you sell something to a Non-Player Character, or loot money off of a dead person.
And, since it's virtual money, it doesn't decay. It stays there, clogging up the economy until every player generated and sold item sells for an absurd amount.

A gold sink is the solution to this problem. Simply put, you create a desired object, and make players pay money to a source that, essentially, deletes it. A non-player character. For example, after time, your armor and weapons in WoW will break, thus, you must repair them, for let's say 100 gold, by giving the 100 gold to a non-player character. Now, since this is a non-player character, the money doesn't leave back into the economy. Instead, the money is gone.

In this case, however, the amount was larger than, 100 gold, it was ten times that, thus forcing every single character (it's almost impossible to get to level 80 without Cold Weather Flying) to pay 1000 gold at level 78 to a source that deletes it forever. There are, of course, more expensive gold sinks, the fasted kind of flying in the game costing 5000 gold, and some of the more rare mounts costing in the neighborhood of 20,000 gold. But those are generally not "necessary" unlike Cold Weather Flying, and armor repair, which are.

Then, when "Cataclysm" announced that it would be adding flight capability to the areas of the game from levels 1-60, many people asked one question, in fact, at Blizzcon 2009 someone, during the press conference yelled out, "BUT WILL WE NEED TO BUY 'OLD WEATHER FLYING'?"

And the thing is, they said no. They said, to fly in the old world, you would need to buy nothing but the skill to ride flying mounts, and the flying mount itself. No Old Weather Flying.

And then the above quote was released. Sigh. Nice.

Ok, so here's what I really REALLY don't understand. WHY THE HECK IS OLD WEATHER FLYING BOUGHT AT LEVEL 60?! It really reeeeeally seems to me like it should be bought at level, well, 85, the new maximum. Y'know, so people won't SKIP THE NEW CONTENT BY FLYING OVER IT?!

But what really baffles me is the price. If you were trying to make it a gold sink, why did you make it cost a mere 250 gold?! 250 gold is a pittance! It's nothing! A gold sink should either be something cheap you pay for over and over again, (item repair) or something that's reeeeally expensive, you only buy once.

In other words, this makes literally no point. It's like they completely forgot the purpose of Cold Weather Flying in the first place.

Sigh. Whatever Blizzard, whatever.

Video Games Reviews - Oblivion & Fallout 3

Hey, let's play a game. It's called, "name that game!". I'll describe a game, and you guess what it is!

Ok, ready? What game was made by Bethesda Studios in the 2000s, reviving a series that hadn't had a game in several years, and featured, while having a slow start, some excellent questing, and a massive free roaming world the scale of which has been hard to match by any game since.

Did you get it? The answer was Oblivion. And Fallout 3. Because they're the same freaking game.





No really. They are.

After being in production for 4 years, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was released. The absolutely breathtaking visuals, great questing system, and just the free-ness of the game really give the game a feeling that few others have ever captured, even though it certainly had it's fair share of problems.

At the start of the game you find yourself in prison for a crime that's never adequately explain, when suddenly Captain Jean Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise is escorted into your cell by two guards, and you find out that there's a secret passageway as an escape, and that there's a hit out on him and blah blah blah he dies five minute later anyways.



Anyways, after the Captain is assassinated by a guy with magic armor or whatever, the guards get really depressed and let you walk free, because... Why the heck not. They're not very good at their job.

From there, you can go do... Whatever the heck you want. You can do all sorts of stuff! You're a warrior? Go join the warriors guild! You're a thief? Go steal stuff! You're an explorer? Go explore! The world is massive and you were given little to no direction. Sure, you CAN do the main quest involving demons invading the kingdom, and finding Picard's last heir, but really, if you are playing Oblivion and only doing the main quest, you're missing the point. Go explore! There's all sorts of nifty things out in the world! You can find all sorts of awesome stuff! So go level up, explore, grow your magical powers, steal stuff, kill people, do what you wish!

Speaking of killing people, another unique thing Oblivion did is give you the power to kill pretty much anyone. There are a few "essential" NPCs you can't kill until you've finished their part of the main quest, but hey, other than that, you can mindlessly slaughter most of the kingdom if you want.

Also, not only can you kill everyone in the game, but unlike many games, you can actually, y'know, take what they had on them. For example, you kill a guard? You can loot a dead guard, for example, and get his armor. And his sword. And his money.

What if you find out the guy you just killed was part of a quest two days later? Well, if that happens, you're screwed! But the sheer number of quests will make sure you never run short on things to do. Go buy a house! Go get the unbreakable lockpick! Go curse a town with a plague of flaming dogs raining down from the skies! Enchant your armor to make you completely invisible! Get a mask that bends the very fabric of reality! Go become champion of the Imperial City arena!

That said, while the game is definately one of my favorites of all time, it certainly wasn't without it's problems. The main quest, unlike pretty much everything else in the game, is very bland. In fact, I've never finished the main quest in Oblivion on any character. Every time I make a character I soon lose interest in saving the world, and instead decide I'm going to go do something more... Um... Fun.

And one of the most annoying things in the game is the lack of voice actors. You will hear the same two or three voice actors doing various accents for every character in the entire freaking game. And it does get very annoying before long.

Not to mention that, while the graphics engine is gorgeous, and Oblivion is still, in my opinion, one of the best looking games on the market today... It can bug fairly easily. And the graphics don't always scale well on every machine.

In fact, the entire game can bug fairly easily. Not to mention there are some fairly game breaking design flaws, such as the ability to become 100% invisible if you enchant your gear right, making not only your sneak skill epically insane, but the enemies unable to see you, and thus you able to KILL THEM ALL!

But these are just tiny blemishes on the great game that is Oblivion. A classic game, that any true RPG fan should play.

The level up system is far different from other games, in that you don't get experience points, you level up each skill individually, by using that skill. Level up swords by hitting things with swords. Level up athletics by jumping.

Meanwhile in 2008, someone at Bethesda said, "Hey guys, you know what Oblivion really needed? GUNS!"

And so Fallout 3 was made.

The Fallout series, for those who don't know, is set in an alternate universe, where after World War 2, America never progressed forward socially, thus staying in a 1950's culture. Maybe they didn't have enough snobs, who knows? Either way, in 2077, Earth nukes the crap out of itself. Oops. Luckily, a few groups of humans sealed themselves away inside underground vaults, safe from the nuclear fallout. (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)

Eventually, all the Vaults opened up. Except of course for Vault 101, which never opened, and that's where our story begins. Heh. 101. I see what you did there Bethesda.



Ok, now, let me just say now, Fallout 3, technically speaking, is the superior game. Almost every bug or quirk Oblivion had no longer exists in Fallout 3. There are more voice actors, so that's better, the graphics engine isn't quite so buggy any more, and it's just TECHNICALLY, a better game.

However, it's hard for me to define one or the other as BETTER, when really they're just very DIFFERENT.

Sure, it's easy to say, "it's Oblivion with guns" and knock off this review, but that would be giving it FAR less than it's due.

The first big difference, aside from the guns, of course, is the inclusion of the Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S.

V.A.T.S. lets you zoom in to target specific points of your enemy and shoot them using a resource known as "Action Points". You can target legs to cripple the speed of the enemy, arms to cripple the enemies accuracy, guns to knock them out of the enemies hands, torso because why the heck not, and head to do more damage and get a satisfying bloody explosion when the final shot is fired.

You might think it would get old slowing down time and shooting people up, but it NEVER DOES! EVER! There's just something AWESOME about it! Maybe I'm just sadistic. I dunno, either way V.A.T.S. is awesome.

Now, I gotta say, the main questline in this is infinitely better than Oblivion's, I.E. it's actually good. It all starts with you inside of Vault 101 growing up. It starts with you at 1, and then skips forwards a few time until finally, you're 19! Hooray! And guess what? Your dad abandoned you and left the vault! And now the Overseer sent guards to kill you! Time to KILL THEM ALL or maybe that's just me. I dunno.

In any case, you escape the vault, and go to the nearby town of Megaton to see if anyone knows where your dad went to. Oh and did I mention that there's a LIVE ATOMIC BOMB IN THE CENTER OF TOWN?!



Let's see if you can guess where this is going.

Anyways, after talking to this one guy, you find out your dad went to the host of a popular radio show Galaxy News Radio, and a man approaches you and makes you an offer. Blow up megaton, and profit.

Of course, you COULD choose to disarm it and let a hundred or so people live but c'mon, you can NUKE THE TOWN.



Speaking of radio stations, another one of my favorite features in the game is the inclusion of Radio Stations you can listen to and hear some pretty nice 50's music.





And it's FREAKING AWESOME. Seriously, it's just awesome. Wandering the wide open expanse that is the Capital Wasteland, listening to 50's tunes? It's incredible.

And, the Capital Wasteland is amazing. It's huge, it's fun to explore, and it's just plain cool. The downside is there's much less emphasis on quests, and more on just exploring. That's not to say that there's a lack of quests, but there's definitely less than there are in Oblivion.

It's also populated by a lot of interesting creatures, and characters. Ghouls, Deathclaws, Super Mutants, all sorts of awesome stuff.

So overall, which game is better? Well, honestly, I don't know that I could choose. Both are great games, two of my favorites. Both have strengths. I suppose though, Fallout 3 has less weaknesses. If someone who had played neither had asked me which to get, I would probably say.... Fallout 3. Just because it has a better plot, better UI, and better overall gameplay. But honestly? Both are incredible games. Incredible. And you should get both of them.

So ARE All Forms of Socialization Equal?

So. Yesterday I tackled the topic of the stereotype of gamers having no life.

I ended that post with a question. Is social interaction through the internet of less value than other forms. This is quite a big question. Many people have given many valid opinions on the question. It's not quite as clear or easy as other topics such as "are games art?" seem to be to me. That's because it's a really hard question to ask. "Is the internet valid social interaction?"

What is social interaction? In yesterdays post I said that "having a life" was just having lots of social interaction, but really, what does that mean? Quite simply it is interaction between people. From the earliest of times, people have had to interact just to get by. As society has progressed, people have interacted in various other ways.

These ways have gotten to a point more and more technological over the years. Speaking became letters, letters became telegrams, telegrams became phone calls, and now, phone calls have become a whole plethora of internet related means of socialization. Perhaps that's why the internet falls into some skepticism? There are so many means of communicating over the internet, how can they all be as valid as speaking face to face?

Ah, but therein lies the faulty logic. People always go back to face to face interaction as being the "true" form of socialization. And why shouldn't they? Being next to someone and speaking to them face to face introduces a near infinite number of other variables to them interaction. Facial tics, tones, the way a person carries themselves, these can all tell you something about the other person that won't come across in a letter, phone call, or e-mail.

But I think the question we need to ask ourselves is really, "why isn't the internet a valid form of social interaction?" Phone calls have been considered a valid form of social interaction forever, and yet if I talk to someone through a vent server on the internet, suddenly people tell me that "those aren't REAL people."

I'm sorry, but how does talking to someone over the internet as opposed to over a telephone line suddenly make that person less real? That's just stupid.

Well I'll tell you where this comes from. A basic fear of the unknown. The internet is new, and you know what? It's a great way to meet people with similar interests. But it's new. And people don't understand the new. Therefore it's unknown, and scary. Everyone is convinced that absolutely everyone on the internet is some crazy stalker, murderer, or rapist. Or all 3.

Now, don't get me wrong, those people absolutely do exist on the internet. And it's very important to be careful who you give information about yourself to. You should be careful. But there are also great, harmless, fun people on the internet. And you know what? You're cheating yourself if you have an irrational fear of every single person on the internet. Not every guy on the internet is The Slender Man people.



Google it if you dare, people.

Anyways, that's why the internet is frowned on as a "real" social interaction. Because you're not talking to "real" people. You're talking to fake usernames. It's easy for a lot of people to forget that there are "real" people behind those usernames.

Well people, I hate to tell you, but that's stupid. People on the internet are every bit as much real as people on the phone.

So the big question, is internet interaction equal to other forms?

In my opinion, yes. It is. It is different, but equal. Chatting on the internet is just as valid as texting. E-mail is just a faster form of writing letters, and yes, voice chat is just as valid as talking on the phone.

I suspect eventually people will realize this, and hopefully, stop treating it like a lesser form of interaction. But at this point, one can only wait until then.

Stereotypes Do, Stereotypically, Exist for a Reason Though

So, I really really want to see Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World. I think it looks like an awesome movie, and I fully plan on seeing it while it is in theaters sometime in the coming weeks. Like many do, I pay attention to reviews for movies that I plan on seeing. For example, I really wanted to see the Percy Jackson movie, since that's based on a series of purely AWESOME books. Once I saw the reviews however, I noticed that they listed a lot of changes that were made in the movie that sounded atrocious to me. And they were. And that movie was awful. Eugh.

But while viewing an article about the disappointing opening weekend for Scott Pilgrim, I found the opening line of one newspaper's review of the movie.

"First of all, I'm not a video gamer. I have discovered more appealing ways to not have a life."

Cue the nerd rage.

Gamers are thought of in this way, far too often. I mean, this isn't by a long shot an isolated incident. Gamers, far more so than any other genre of hobby, are portrayed as anti-social angry haters of all things good and holy.

So, let's look at why this stereotype exists. I mean, why is it that gamers are portrayed in a manner like this,



in the first place? I mean, film lovers aren't portrayed as antisocial, although movie watching as a hobby isn't exactly the most social of experiences. I mean, the first result you get on google images when you search "gamer" is this:



Not exactly flattering. I mean, even comic book lovers aren't portrayed quite as anti-social as gamers, with TV shows often showing a comic book shop as having a tight-knit group that goes there regularly, and where absolutely everyone is on a first name basis.

What do we mean when we say that someone doesn't have a "life"? We aren't referring to a dead person. We're referring to someone who, plain and simple, doesn't get a lot of socialization. This, is probably why games are thought of as an anti-social experience. I mean, when you think of video games, you think of Mario. Zelda. Half-Life. All sorts of great... Single-player experiences.

But, Mario always had Luigi. Games are quite possibly the most social art form. Books aren't social. When you're reading a book, you're interacting with absolutely no one. Sure, you can talk about the book later, but really, you're not interacting with anyone WHILE READING THE BOOK. Movies are the same, you don't exactly interact with anyone while watching a film. Again, any social aspect comes afterward. I suppose you could argue music can be a social experience, but.. Even that's a bit of a stretch.

But games, games can truly be a social art form. The very existence of multiplayer shows this. The fact that with games like Team Fortress 2, you can actually interact with other real people, that makes it more interactive, and yes, social, than movies, literature, or music. The fact that there is more interaction than just discussing it, to actually be interacting within the medium, makes it more social than any other media.

Now, it's true, most of that interaction does involve watching the other players head explode as you get sweeping headshots on him and his buddies, but hey, anyone who doesn't understand the interaction that comes from that sort of interaction, can't truly have it explained to them. They must experience it for themselves.

Let me take an example from my own life. A couple of good friends of mine (who yes, I only know through the internet) and I used to play the free FPS Combat Arms quite often. Most of the time, however, we wouldn't play with anyone but the three of us, in a deathmatch mode. In voice chat. And you know what? There was trash talk. There were laughs. There was a sort of social experience gotten from that, that I don't think could ever quite be matched by watching a movie, or reading a book.

I have great memories of exploiting the terrain, and falling onto a small ledge and sniping one of them with a pistol, that certainly couldn't be matched by a movie, at least.

But there's way more interaction than that. There's a sort of teamwork gotten from gaming that can never be matched. With the advent of online gaming, there's great teams being formed to do impossible tasks, on a daily basis. Take the game Borderlands (review coming soon... probably.) which features 4 player co-op. There's levels of teamwork needed in that game, and there's truly social entertainment that can't be matched by a movie. A movie can't recreate the social experience that is Borderlands. Having one guy distract an enemy while the other shoots him/her/it in the butt, that's entertaining, and it's SOCIAL.



Beyond that, there's games that take that on a HUGE scale. Take World of Warcraft for example. World of Warcraft is infamous for having many "no-lifers". I mean, we're talking about the game people have literally died of, because they didn't want to stop playing to eat... Right?

Well yes, but those people are crazy. What most people don't notice is how social WoW is. I mean, there's very little you can do without the help of other players at endgame. Once you reach level 80, you pretty much need to group up with 4-24 other people in order to progress. There's different paths, PvP, 10-Man raiding, 25-man raiding, but still, they all take various levels of OTHER PLAYERS (real live people) to do.

Guilds (groups of people who form a kind of club in game) have a sort of community in them that's unmatched by many experiences outside of games. Good ones, at least.

The point is, gamers get plenty of socialization, and for a large part, do have lives. The thing people fail to understand is that gaming is part of their lives. A big part. And until people do understand, and accept that, the stereotype will stick. People fail to accept that killing bosses in WoW is as much socialization, as going to the movies with a group of friends is.

Ah, but the real question is, is it as valid a form of socialization? That, unfortunately, is a question for another day.