So I'm reading through the comments in the news-post regarding the inclusion of demos in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. For the record, I'm not a big fan of the series, but I thought that the latest news was sort of interesting, so I wanted to hear what my fellow gamers had to say on the subject. And that's when I came to the following post.

holy look at all the fanboys for nintendo. All their games suck and all they can look forwards to is a cheap fighter knockoff using characters out of all their first party games. And look the fanboys go to all the pro nintendo statements and add thumbs up, dojo possibly? Thats really lame, the game is nowhere near the greatest games ever, mindless fun sure, just like any first person shooter minus the longevity of course, storyline, and/or lack of originality. Yea nintendo milk Link, Mario, and Metroid for as long as you can. Thats all you got, 3rd party support will kill the Wii-tard revolution soon enough.

Now, I'm the sort of guy who gets annoyed when I read crap like this. There is absolutely no place in rational discussion for people who's IQ is outclassed by that of the crap I take after eating at Taco Bell, yet this stuff is more common than free BJs back-stage at a Maddona concert.

It's just pitiful to see people irrationally striking out at other people over something like this, when we should all be united by our love of the hobby. People are all too quick to jump on the jerkwad bandwagon, when at the end of the day the name on your favorite fun-box is inconsquential as anything other than a means to an end. It's the games that matter, and it's right there in the word we use to describe us! We are gamers, not Playstationeers, XBoxers, or Nintendolphins, or whatever stupid name you might want to attach to us. Some of us have placed all too much importance on the wrong aspect of the hobby, and it's pretty-much been the source for all the stupid crap we have to wade through when those of us with IQs in the positive make the mistake of thinking that we can discuss the hobby with like-minded individuals.

I know that this guy didn't say anything about what console he favors in his little rant there, but one can assume that he was motivated to ape-spit there by an unspoken love for a console that doesn't have Nintendo's name on it. Why else would someone be compelled to trash Nintendo, it's games, and the people who play them? If he's not a fan-boy of either Sony, Microsoft, or the PC platform, then he's just being a jerkwad for the sake of it, and so in his case it would almost be better if his mentally-deranged ranting was motivated by being a fan-boy.

Whatever the case may be though, he said a lot of inane things for no good reason, and that in a nut-shell is why I'm becoming increasingly more ashamed of being a gamer. You like what you like, and nobody is going to tell you otherwise, including myself. I'm here simply asking that if any of you should feel the need to abandon all common sense and reason in order to bash something you don't like amidst people who do just to make yourself feel a little bit better about your beloved game-box, that you think twice. You gain nothing from it, and you're forever branded a jerk by those who's brains function on a level above that of mayonnaise that's been left out in the sun for a week.

In closing, I'd like to leave you with the immortal....initialism of some random guy on the gaming blog Destructiod; STFUAJPG. After all, that's what being a gamer is all about. Just playing games.

Lately, for one reason or another, I've been playing an awful lot of Hot Shots Golf Fore on the PS2.  I popped it in the other night on and impulse, as I hadn't played the game in nearly a year beforehand.  Three or four hours later, I was still playing.

All that time spent with the game really showed me how little I really know about the mechanics of golf.  Even the ease to which things have been simplified hasn't helped me to figure things out.  I can do pretty well when conditions are optimal, ie. no wind, and playing the course is usually pretty simple.  However, when they throw 7kph winds into the mix, I'm not sure how much I should compensate for it, and usually end up screwed royally by the time I manage to get the ball within putting range.  Not that it gets any better at that point.
The damned putting mechanics have me completely stymied!  If there's an easy way to read the green, then I've not found it yet.  It may as well be a book in a foreign language for all the good it does me to try and read the thing.   I try and interpret the tiny dots that seemingly exist to show you the lay of the green, but I'm almost always wrong, often failing to adjust just right for the peaks and valleys.  I don't get it. 

Even with all that holding me down, it's still an immensely fun game.  I wish I had the manual for it, but my copy never had one, as it was an impulse purchase during one of Gamestop's buy two, get one free deals.  I suppose I'm going to have to search out some tutorials online, if they indeed exist.  I hope to come out of this a better golfer, at least as pertaining to the Hot Shots world, because it really is an engaging game.  I just need to stop sucking so badly at it.  :P

Wish me luck. 

I'm really taken aback by the level of stupidity that seems to run rampant here.   What the hell happened to the concepts of common sense?  Why does it seem that in the zeal to release the filth stagnating in thier brains all over the internet, that a large percentage of people often forget to think before they've posted?

Take our friend Bufta, who posted the following comments today to the "Wii as an impulse purchase" news story.

Bufta:"Well everything he is saying is true so whats the big deal! The wii is a fad and for me at least it was a laboured decision to get one, what with it being 6 year old technology and all. Sony do say some dodgy things but whilst they are shouting nintendo are in the background laughing their little red hats off at us for buying altered gamecubes. And as for microsoft they just deserve to burn and die what with the joke that is the 360's reliability. Sony are not the baddies in this war. And as for all these people saying i can afford a wii but not a ps3 well no wonder you can afford a wii. Its a crappy low definition console that even the old xbox can beat. Not much to brag about i feel. Also if nintendo become the winner of the next gen battle then their system will be the new standard which is a backwards step for all us gamers. So think on flamers Sony have the only machine that truly rocks. And youll all be saying the same this time next year because your all so fickle!"

Now, even considering what I said in my last blog entry, what would cause someone to say things like this?  Stuff that is so out of touch with reality?  He makes statements bashing Microsoft that also apply to Sony, he suggests that Nintendo is laughing at those who purchased the Wii, when it's actually only a fanboy conceit that the Wii is simply a repackaged GC, and he goes on to suggest that should Nintendo manage to win a majority of the market, that it would become the industry standard to which future consoles are built, meaning that graphics will suffer as a result.  What the hell?

People who act like this are the reason why I sometimes question whether or not remaining in this hobby is something I wanna do.  I enjoy gaming.  I like to discuss the hobby with like-minded people.  But due to the anonymity of the internet, any jackass with his head so far up his rear-end that he can lick his colon, can come into a discussion and ruin it.  This is why I make it a point to expose fanboy nutjobs for what they are.  I figure that if I do my best to discourage this behaviour, even if it's just a little bit here and there, that maybe I'll be able to talk to my fellow gamers about the hobby without the discussion being ruined by some overzealous fanboy nut.  It's probably a futile effort, but I figure it's worth a shot.  Anything is better than continuing to let them bastardise the hobby.

The fanboy. A subject of great interest to us all. Or maybe not. Some like to follow their antics in an attempt to gain incite into their psycological makeup, inevitably giving it up as a lost cause. Others don't even try to figure them out, simply loathing their existance and everything it stands for, as these uniquely over-zealous gamers often ruin otherwise decent discussions about our favorite hobby with their inane drivel. Wherever you stand on the topic of the fanboy, I think that we all can agree that they're worthless wastes of skin, at least from a gamer's standpoint.
I personally can't stand them. The idea that the simple matter of what console one owns being important enough to some to lead to irrational arguments between owners of directly competing products, just boggles the mind. It simply does not compute. That they'd take it to the extremes they do makes my head throb with the threat of spontaneous explosion everytime I check the feedback sections of my favorite gaming sites. That very thing is also why I've devoted myself to not only trying to figure them out, but to setting them straight when I come across a particular nasty example of one.
My take on the matter is this. If you are the sort of gamer who limits yourself and the enjoyment of your favorite hobby by letting something like brand loyalty rule you, then just keep your trap shut about it. You bought your favored console, and wether or not anyone else feels the same about it as you do doesn't matter.
You don't need to constantly justify your purchases by textually tearing apart the competition in a flurry of idiotic rants and taunts. At the end of the day, after you've wasted several hundred words telling everyone why console A is worse than console B, often ignoring the same faults in your favored console to do it, it's not going to effect wether or not you have fun with it, nor is it likely to change anyone's mind.
That's what I believe it boils down to, people. Fanboys are insecure people who throw their support behind one console in particular, and then waste the time they could spend enjoying games on reinforcing to themselves that their choice was a good one. They do this by slamming the competition in hopes that everyone else will suddenly stop having opinions of their own and fall in line with them. It could be said that they're simply trying to ensure the viability of their favored gamebox, but the true gamers out there, the ones who go where the games are regardless of what system they're on, are doing that already. They're ensuring that worthwhile formats remain as such. When you consider that, it all seems so very pointless, doesn't it?
What are your thoughts on this matter, people?