Sportsmanship in Gaming

A lot of people play multiplayer FPS games online. We all know the same cliche, too. People spewing hate, racism, sexism, cursing. Kids with no business being online shouting slurs into the microphone because they're parents either don't know or don't care. Anger and harassment are so common that they have become an accepted feature of many games.
I'm not going to analyze the phenomenon too deeply. If that's what you're looking for, I suggest checking out the latest episode of Extra Credits: http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/extra-credits/extra-credits-season-4-episode-11-harassment

I don't play online that much, but I've still seen some pretty nasty stuff. I was going through Portal 2 coop a couple months back and was hooked up with a random opponent. I was just about to finish the last level, and he had already gone through it. So I went through, taking my time and trying to figure out the puzzles. The guy I was playing with spent the entire match denouncing me and calling me stupid because I had not gone through it already and while he had all the solutions memorized.

A Game Review - Sideway New York (PC)

 A couple weeks ago somebody brought my attention to a charity bundle of Indie games, similar to the Humble Indie Bundle. You buy three games of your choice and pay what you want. The biggest draw for me was a first person puzzle game called The Ball, which I have been eyeing for a while. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get it for cheap, so I shelled out a few bucks and got a couple more games along with it.
One of the other games was the subject of this review: a 2.5D platformer called Sideway New York. The game was developed by Playbrains and released on PSN for the Playstation 3, and later brought to Steam. The game follows a hip young grafitti artist with the Nox. While parkouring around the city one day, looking for his missing friend, Nox gets himself dragged through a portal into the land of Sideway, a two-dimensional world made of paint that exists on flat surfaces. With the help of the mysterious Fume, he must rescue his friend, defeat the tyrannical Spray, and find a way back to the third dimension.

A Game Review - Bastion (PC)

 Bastion had me psyched from the first video I saw of it. Unfortunately, since I don't own a 360, I never thought I would have the chance to play it - until it showed up on Steam. I picked it up during the holiday sale (along with Portal 2) but have been so busy college, in addition to playing other games, that I didn't have the chance to give it a thorough playthrough until just recently.

If Game Characters Were Ice Cream

It's been a while since I've written a blog. Now that we have the new subscription service in place, I thought this would be a great opportunity to get back into it. I don't know about you guys, but here in upstate New York, it's hot. Okay, so maybe low 80's isn't as bad as it gets some places, but the humidity makes up for it. I've had ice cream on the mind, and when I decided to write a blog, that was the first thing that came to my head. The only problem is, is that really the way to make my return to blogging? Writing about food? I should do something game related, right?
This was my solution. I know, it's corny and goofy. Just bear with me. We'll have a little fun. I've taken six of my favorite video game characters and figured out the answer to a question that nobody asked. If these characters were actually ice cream, what kind would they be?

Nine More Games I'd Play if I Owned the Other Consoles

Being an exclusive gamer these days seems a little restrictive to me. I am by no means against having a console of choice, or being a big fan of a specific genre, company, or anything else. I'm just saying that if you're a gamer and you've spend even a few minutes on any game website, you are bound to have noticed something outside your usual haunt that has captured your fancy.
Case in point: I'm the proud owner of a Nintendo Wii. I'm not going to pretend for one secodn that I don't love my Wii and think that it's awesome. I'm also not going to pretend that there aren't any PS3 or 360 games that would interest me. If I had the cash, I would happily get myself a couple more consoles and indulge myself in these games, but unfortunately, that's probably not going to happen any time soon, so I'm here making a list about them instead.

Tomato Pie is Gross

 I really don't like tomato pie. The flavor, the texture, there is nothing about it that really appeals to me. We have a tomato pie in the house that was left over from New Years, so we froze it and only recently thawed it out. As everybody in my household proceeded to start fawning over this square mess of a food, I've found myself turning my nose up again and again at its, in my mind, putrid properties.

A Music Review - "Th1rt3en" by Megadeth

Note: I originally wrote this for my college journalism class. I had to write a music review and chose this because I had just gotten it. If I had written it as a blog, the language would be much more laid back and I probably would have gone into more details on the songs due to having more freedom and space. Still, I wrote it, so I thought I would let you guys check it out.