Is The Battle Between Smartphones and the 3DS already over?

According to Slash Gear it is.

The article points out the 3DS' slow sales numbers since its launch while also pointing out how Apple's upcoming iPod 5 will beat the 3DS by providing "compelling gaming experiences." The tone of the article seems a bit mean spirited towards the Big N, even going so far as to say that "consumers do not and will not care about the 3DS."

That seems a bit harsh, considering that 3DS' sales have been up since the system's $80 price drop last month (something that the article clearly points out.) Personally, I think the 3DS is far from doomed in the current market. Admittedly, The main reason I have yet to be compelled to pick one up has been because of the system's abysmal battery life, its high launch price, and of course, its unimpressive launch titles. Nintendo has definitely gotten the 3DS started on more than a few wrong feet, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have an audience. With Super Mario Land 3D and Mario Kart 3D coming out this holiday season, Nintendo's hardcore fanbase will definitely make their monetary support for their favorite gaming company count.

Plus, many hardcore gamers are still apprehensive about gaming primarily on smart phones and tablets due to the lack of proper thumbsticks and buttons. It's the hardcore market that the 3DS and Sony's upcoming Playstation Vita are competing for, so it is safe to say that there are indeed people who care about the 3DS. Does this mean that Nintendo shouldn't be worried about the future? Of course not. For all the support that Nintendo has from its hardcore fanbase, what made its previous handhelds such as the Game Boy and Nintendo DS so successful were casual, assessable games that served as fun distractions. In this way, the article has a point regarding Nintendo's unwillingness to evolve. After the 3DS' era is over, Nintendo is going to have to really improve and embrace its online download services if it hopes to stay relevant in the handheld market a generation from now.

Orson Scott Card Finally Removes All That Pesky Gayness in "Hamlet."

Page discovered via Moviebob's Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/the_moviebob

I hate Orson Scott Card. This is an opinion that I openly share with anyone who will listen to it. His novels aside, the man is one of the biggest and homophobic douchebags to ever have written a best seller. So it comes as something of a shock (or maybe not, considering what he has said in the past) that the celebrated science-fiction author has taken upon himself to "rewrite" William Shakespeare's timeless tragedy, Hamlet, and expunge it of any and all references to things that may oppose his archaic sense of reality (namely, the homosexual undertones of the play.)

Via Rain Taxi: http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2011summer/card.shtml

Now, I am not opposed to the rewriting of classic works in the name of bringing the story into the modern age. Though I have issues with the director's other works, I think Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet was an alright movie, and Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies is still on my "must-read" list. However, the motivations behind Card's version is down right deplorable not only for removing the play's gay undertones for thinly-veiled homophobia, but also for apprently sucking all of the drama out of the plot by having Hamlet not give a crap about the murder of his father. As Alexander states in his review:

"The prince is unfazed and emotionally indifferent to the old king's death, feels no sense of betrayal when his mother speedily remarries, and thinks that Claudius will make a perfectly good monarch. Hamlet is also secure in his religious faith, with absolute and unshakable beliefs about the nature of death and the afterlife. He isn't particularly hung up on Ophelia, either. Throughout the novella, Prince Hamlet displays the emotional depth of a blank sheet of paper."

He also states:

"Hamlet, as re-imagined by Orson Scott Card, is certainly queer. Unfortunately, the prince's literary stepfather is both a bigot and a bowdlerizer. If aught of wonder you would see, look elsewhere."

Well said, sir.

Can Games and Zombies Grow Up Together?

This coming week will see the arrival of the latest game to cash in on the (admittedly, simmering down) zombie craze, Dead Island. With other games such as Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, and the perennial Resident Evil series having already lead gamers down a well worn path of brain-munching and flesh-devouring, many people were ready to dismiss the announcement of the game as just another product meant to capitalize on the current popular trends of the video game industry. After having blown off more undead skulls than could possibly be counted, the entire video game community was almost done with the idea of the game before they had even played it. That was until they saw the game’s first trailer.

If that trailer doesn’t make you want to cry your eyes out by the end of it, you may have to consult your physician to see if the little bit of your brain that controls your emotional core hadn’t been surgically removed while you slept last night. This single trailer made gamers take the idea of a zombie game seriously again. Within this trailer, gamers saw promise and they saw hope. What they saw was something that could possibly give the video game industry a zombie game that wasn’t just an imitation of classic B-horror cinema or a morbid playground for macabre carnage. What they saw was a game that promised to give us in the gaming community something that we are not often used to receiving in our games: an emotional attachment. Now, that is not to say there haven't been games that have done this kind of thing before. There have been several games that have brought players onto the verge of tears by the time they put the controller down. The thing is, none of those games had zombies in them. What many people, myself included, were hoping from this game was a zombie game that would present us with some hard choices to make in an impossibly bleak situation. We were dreaming of the nightmarish scenarios that might be presented to us within the context of zombie head bashing. We were hoping to have our very moral characters questioned by what we would do to protect our loved ones if we were presented with a horde of zombie flesh eaters bashing at the door of our hotel room. Above all, we were expecting a somber and nuanced story of real people confronting impossible odds within the context of a visceral action game. That was until we saw this image.

Word, yo. This single image destroyed any hope that we may have had that this game might give us a story that was full of nuance and depth. It was cemented further when we realized through trailers that this character was indeed the stereotypical alpha-male gangster rapper. Now, I have yet to play the game, so it may be that the character has more depth than his character design indicates, but it will be an impressive feat knowing how little game developers like to take risks in their protagonists. So now the hope of having three-dimensional characters was running down the sink. Well, maybe we would still have the ability to make some tough choices that would shake our moral fiber to the core, right? After all, that trailer was pretty intense, what with its depiction of the zombification of a young girl followed by the image of said zombie girl tearing out the throat of her loving father. Well, that was before the developer, Techland, announced that the game would not feature any child zombies. At all. Bummer.

Now, I am not saying that I have a hankering for slaughtering pre-pubescent skin-devourers, nor do I wish for the glorification of child abuse. Far from it. To me, child abuse is the single worst act that a person can inflict on another human being and is something that should never be taken lightly. But that’s just the point. I was hoping that this game wouldn’t take its subject matter lightly. As stated above, I and many other people were hoping to face some tough decisions, including but not limited to the disturbing choice of slaying an (albeit undead) child or having your own entrails pulled out and used as an hors d’oeuvre. I was hoping that we could finally have a game that (pardon the pun) would have the guts to take an absurd situation and turn it into an interactive story that would show the world how far video games have come along in what they can convey about the human experience. Instead, it would seem that what we would get was what we initially feared: just another zombie game.

Is the video game industry ready to tackle something as disgusting and disturbing as facing an undead horde of kindergartners? In my opinion, not only is it ready, but also it’s been ready for a long freaking time. Video games have infinite potential when it comes to exposing the best and worst of our individual selves through the act of play, and it’s had it for over a decade now. Yet, still we see that potential wasted in favor of recycling the same tired and worn out ideas and stories in the name of making a profit. The better question is: is the world ready for games to tackle such subject matter? The general public, and much of the video game community, still see games as being something that is meant only for fun, almost to a childish degree. With such attitudes, it is easy for them to condemn any game that tries to approach the same subject matter that is tackled by film and literature every year. If The Walking Dead can depict a young zomb-girl getting her brains blown away on basic cable, why can’t an M rated video game do the same? Yes, the idea might seem vile and repulsive, especially in the context of a video game, but the beauty of games is that this situation might be completely avoidable depending on the design of the game. The game might ask the player if he or she is willing to discard their old humanity in the name of survival, and if the player is unwilling to make that sacrifice, the game might give the player different options with which to survive. Possibility is the essence of interactivity, and it is this interactivity that gives gaming its weight as a storytelling medium. However, that weight is completely discarded every time a developer refuses to take a risk that might actually challenge its audience.

Dead Island looks like it has shaped up to be a perfectly serviceable action-horror game. Still, that doesn’t take away the sting of knowing that the game could have been so much more than serviceable. It could have been the next great step in pushing video games as a medium; instead it wastes its potential on appealing to the widest market possible. Is this the fault of the developer? To an extent, but the blame lays mostly at the feet of video game buying public. If gaming is ever going to break free of the juvenile shadow of SpikeTV’s Video Game Awards and G4tv, then we, as gamers, are going to have to start making powerful statements with our wallets and supporting games that ask us to do a little bit more than just pull gun triggers and splatter brains onto our TV screens.

I believe introductions are in order...

Heya, everyone and everyone. BabyFaceJer here. If you don't know who I am, then fear not! You are not alone! That is why I am here to remedy your unfortunate impairment! So listen now and listen well, all you lovely folks out there in cyber-land! I'm just your typical uber-geek looking to make his way in the bright new frontier known as the Internet. I've started up this blog simply to better let my voice be heard on the things I love, namely: video games, movies, and comic books. I'll be dabbing into a little bit of all three of these wonderful realms of geekdom as I post my reviews, thoughts, and other fun little flights of fancy here on this brand spanking new webzone. It is my sincere wish to create a fun, light-hearted blog that will hopefully act as a good writing exercise for me, and a neat little distraction for all of you. ;-) If you enjoy my stuff, by all means, tell your friends, neighbors, and small animals. Heck, tell the big animals, too. Watch out for the bears, though. They can be nasty. Trust me. I played Red Dead Redemption. Look forward to more posts soon, and thanks for visiting! Stay awesome!