Wasting time in strange new worlds

I have been remiss in posting about gaming because I have been gaming. Seriously gaming. The kind of Serious Gaming where I keep staying up until 5 a.m., several nights in a row.

As I've been playing Mass Effect, I've been inhabiting new worlds, exploring them, meeting characters and getting to know them, seeing through the eyes of a character myself ...

And as I've played, it's struck me that it's like I'm reading a novel. When I read "The Lord of the Rings," I was doing the same things: Exploring a new world, meeting characters, and seeing through their eyes.

How many of us who enjoy video games have heard other people dismiss our hobby as a waste of time?

But how is engaging your mind with a game you enjoy different from spending the same amount of time passively watching a football game or baseball game? Is it wasted time? Is any time you spend doing something just because you enjoy it the same as wasting the time?

What about the time spent watching TV or movies? Why do so many people who think nothing of spending passive hours enjoying television dismiss video games? I enjoy TV, too, but TV is passive. I can't go to sleep playing a video game, because it wakes up my brain.

Mass Effect elevates the whole "wasted time" debate to a new level of challenge. Many of the people who sniff at video games would never dismiss reading a great book as a waste of time. What they fail to understand is that Mass Effect is like reading a good book.

What Mass Effect makes ever clearer is that video games are an emerging art form. Like movies, they are a multimedia form of storytelling. You aren't just witnessing the story. You are in the story. You live it. Instead of witnessing a character make choices and have experiences that teach him lessons and shape his life, you enact those experiences yourself. You live through those life-altering events, and maybe you learn something, if the game makers have spent much thought on the story.

Was "Beowulf," written sometime around the 900s, considered a waste of time by many during its day? Or was it considered a new art form? What about novels, as a dawning form of literature? What did people think about them? Movies made the transition from technological curiosity to art form in only a few decades in the early 20th century.

Rather than being a pinnacle in gamemaking, Mass Effect suggests the great promise of video games. It makes clear the potential of video games as a medium for storytelling. In future years, in literature classes, will there be a mention of Mass Effect in the evolution of video games as they ascended to respectability? When will the J.R.R. Tolkien of video games emerge with a masterpiece?

In the lifetime of my great grandparents, airplanes went from the Wright brother's dune-hopping powered kite to the technological marvels that fly at Mach 5, and to the rockets that carried men to the moon. Video games consisted of Pong when I was kid, and look at them now. And yet we're still in the barnstorming biplane days of video games.

I look forward to when video games transcend the stigma of "time-wasters" and children's toys and come to be regarded like movies. Sure, there are popcorn movies that just blow up good. Most video games do that, and that has its place. But there are also movies that compel you to think, that move you emotionally or that paint a picture of some truth in life. Games need to become respected as a place for grown-up storytelling. Like movies, games must have a venue for children's fare and a place for mature drama, with cursing and violence and nudity and love and sex and God and compassion and death all being parts of the story, because those are the things that life is about.

But right now, Mass Effect is like a sail on the horizon for what games will become.

Tonight, as I step again onto the Normandy's deck, I'm hoping to make the beautiful blue asari Liara fall in love with me. I had to make a choice between Ashley and Liara, and I chose Liara. I'm eager to find out if I made the right choice.

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My reviews of Ace Combat, COD4 and Conan

My official reviews of Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat and Conan are all posted on the Techcetera blog on al.com now. Take a look at the links and let me know what you think.

Duty calls, and we answer

The invasion of Call of Duty 4 has decimated my gaming time. All other games have fallen back before its unstoppable onslaught. I have lost sleep this week, staying up to ungodly hours trying to get a few more kills for weapon upgrades.

I've added the ACOG scope to my M16 and red dot sight to my M4, ranking up so far to gunnery sergeant in multiplayer. Fortiscule, as usual, is showing up his old man in kill streaks, but I'm the cunning one.

All of us who enjoy shooters will want this game. I've seen the crowd I played Rainbow Six with shift to Halo 3, and now the tide has shifted powerfully to COD4.

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It pleases Crom ...


I have traveled through time.

In the future, I fought as an armored Spartan, fighting alongside my new friend Batsak against Covenant monsters.

Then I traveled the distant past, the age of the sword. I rescued the maidens you see here from pain and death. I slew the giant squid and began the final assault on the dark tower.

Next I arrived in the present day.

I flew among the clouds at Mach 2, firing missiles to chase enemy fighters and raining death on tanks and howitzers.

Now I shoulder an M16 and fight for freedom.

Soon, I will leap forward into the future and face a threat such as the galaxy has never seen.

I am spastic in time, like the hero of "Slaughterhouse Five." Can you guess what the five are in this story?

... Conan, Halo 3, Ace Combat 6, Call of Duty 4 and Mass Effect.

See you on the battlefield.

Sending dogs to Crom

Prepare to meet Crom, dog. It is I, Conan, the Cimmerian. Crom sits in his mountain thirsting for blood, and I shall send him yours!

I have rescued many maidens, which gives me great joy. They are very beautiful.

Right now, I'm stuck trying to kill this demon elephant. May his tusks need root canals!

Let me get done with this stupid elephant, Crom, and I'll get right back on that blood thing for you. Sit tight.

... There. I did it, you big elephant ... dog ... demon thing. Report to Crom to be laughed at when you flunk the Riddle of Steel.

And I burned down the misbegotten ships, too, so Crom can play boats in his Mighty Bathtub of Steel beneath his Mountain. Meanwhile, I will enjoy the company of these fine wenches I found chained to the docks!

Who's laughing now? Crom is!

Dog.

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Rally to my banner

I finally figured out what my Halo 3 emblem should be.

I've tried several things. I first used a skull in a cowboy hat, but it just looked ridiculous. I've used a Spartan helmet for a long time because I like "300" so much, but it just didn't seem original.

Then I came up with this abstract image to represent what inspires me. The banner of the Bosom Brigade is very nice and I still like it, but I was concerned that it might not play well in mixed company. I reserve the right to come back to this one, though.

Today I remembered what would be perfect.

It resembles an original family crest that I created many years ago. I painted an emblem very much like this on hats for my dad, my brother and me. It's a crow silhouetted against the sun. Black and yellow are nature's danger signal: bees, poison tree frogs, etc. That's why we respond to that color scheme and they use it for highway danger signs. Danger, danger danger, as Steve Irwin used to say. And a bird in flight in a bright sky is always a glorious thing to see.

I hope that my brother and my cousins will join me in adopting this noble Sun Crow emblem. We'll be a perilous posse indeed!

Massively interested

Not content to wait until Mass Effect comes out on the Xbox 360 on Nov. 20, today I bought the novel that's supposed to lead into the game. I think I should score some geek points for reading a book about a video game that's not even out yet. I would have bought the novel sooner, except I haven't found it until today. I've been watching the book aisle at Wal-Mart for months, but I finally found it today at Books-A-Million. I had to ask the clerk if they had it, and they had only one copy. BioWare should prod their merchandisers a bit. Will they have Mass Effect action figures, too? It remains to be seen.

I've read only one chapter so far, but so far so good. I'm enjoying it. The author, Drew Karpyshyn, wrote "Star Wars: Darth Bane," and it was pretty good.

I also bought a Star Wars Insider magazine, a Heavy Metal magazine, and a collection of original Robert E. Howard Conan stories called "The Bloody Crown of Conan." I felt like falling back on the classics.

Speaking of Conan, I played the new Conan game demo that's a free download on Xbox Live. It's definitely worth a look. The game is an obvious "salute" to David Jaffe's God of War, but it's Conan. And it's fun, judging from the demo. I found the most screen shots for it at the THQ site for the game. The artwork is reminiscent of Frank Frazetta, who is my favorite artist, so that's a great big plus. Note that the Mature rating includes nudity, which is entirely appropriate for a Conan story, as any fan of Frank Frazetta's art knows.

And I recognized two actors' voices. Ron Perlman is doing the voice of Conan, and he's a great actor, but the way he's playing Conan, he sounds just like Hellboy. (Perlman is also in production doing the voice of Conan in an animated feature called "Conan: Red Nails," which looks promising. It has Clancy Brown in it, too, aka the Kurgan and Mr. Krabs.) I imagined Conan to be a little less snarky than Hellboy and more heavy and dark, but I've got to read the original Robert E. Howard before I form a firmer opinion. In the meantime, I respect Ron Perlman's interpretation. The guy played a really good caveman in 1981's "Quest for Fire" long before the Geico caveman, for crying out loud.

Furthermore, the woman from Farscape, Claudia Black, does the voice of the hot barbarian babe warrior queen. That's her character in the screen shot above, courtesy of THQ, God bless 'em. Could she be the cause of the nudity rating?

Life just gets better and better.

Bow before your God of Thunder

While we're discussing superheroes, I must remark on the rumors about casting for a Thor movie. The rumor, repeated by the authoritative imdb.com, is that Kevin McKidd is to play the god of thunder, although Marvel is rumored to prefer wrestler Triple H. I've been a fan of Thor since I was a kid, when I was known to dress up in a red cape and run around in the back yard waving a tack hammer over my head, doing my best little-kid impression of the Odin-son with Mjolnir. Here's my take on the casting issue:

Kevin McKidd would be superb as Thor. I watched the entire HBO series "Rome," in which McKidd played Lucius Vorenus. Anyone who saw that series would have no doubt whatsoever that McKidd is capable of the angst, intensity and ferocity of Thor. Who can forget the terrifying look in his eyes when Vorenus confronted the gangster who boasted that he'd murdered Vorenus' children? Or the murderous frenzy that possessed him in the arena when he fought side-by-side with his friend Titus Pullo? Not to mention the savage swordplay he performed in that scene.

Combine the fierce, brooding character he played in "Rome" with his deep, resonate voice, and his physical appearance, and you practically have Thor incarnate. Look at him in Roman armor. He wears the breastplate and helmet like he stepped out of history. And remember the character he played in another sword epic, "Kingdom of Heaven"? Another perfect fit.



He has the blond hair of a Norseman. His sharp nose and cheekbones makes it seem like he could even have been the model for the classic Marvel depiction of Thor, if that were possible.

On the other hand, Marvel is rumored to prefer Triple H. Now, I'm a fan of Triple H. You can ask my friend, Flying Monkey Joe, and he will confirm that I have long held the belief that Triple H should be in a movie depicting a sword-wielding character. But the character Triple H should play is a barbarian. The ideal role for him would be Kane from the Karl Edward Wagner series of books about the cursed, immortal son of Adam and Eve, the first murderer. That character is a movie gold-mine waiting to be discovered. But if nobody comes through with that, Triple H could be an awesome Conan.

Triple H could project the rough-hewn power and sinew of a barbarian anti-hero. The man is a tank. What wrestling fan can forget the way he continued a match after his quadriceps muscle TORE, even allowing himself to be placed in Chris Jericho's signature leg-wrenching hold despite the injury? Talk about Conan's mighty thews!

And speaking of Chris Jericho, I've long thought he could play a terrific Viking, too. Could he be Thor's sidekick, Baldur? That, too, might be a perfect fit.

So that's my assessment. Can there be any doubt that Kevin McKidd is destined to be Thor? I say thee, Nay! McKidd should go ahead and start growing his hair long.