Well, here's my goofy picture I am choosing to show the world.

OK I have an addiction and its name is Achievement points. I have been buying and playing games merely to rack up a higher Gamerscore. I'm not going to apologize, but I am going to tell you how to do it on the cheap.

If you want cheap GS points, get these games (these are only games I have played so there are probably more out there). The prices I am lifting from Gamestop, used.

1. Aegis Wing and Yaris: these games are free downloads from Xbox Live. They are not too terribly hard but not too terribly easy. And they are pretty fun to boot! Bonus! (On some games I am going to only give some points as the rest are significantly harder to harvest.)

Score: 100 each (200 total)Cost: $0 Cost/GS point: 0.00!

2. Madden NFL 06: I had not played a NFL game previous, but found smashing through a crippled AI on single player quite enjoyable. It was a bit harder to Sim 30 years of franchise play but it is worth it for the massive 400 points.

Score: 1000Cost: $5 Cost/GS point: 0.005

3. King Kong: I enjoyed this game. It is easy, and an easy 1000 points.

Score: 1000Cost: $13 Cost/GS point: 0.013

4. College Hoops 2K6: Easy enough with a user created player who is 7'6" and has max stats.

Score: 1000Cost: $8 Cost/GS point: 0.008

5. Condemned: This game is fun, though searching through the muddy environments after you finish the story can be annoying.

Score: 1000 Cost: $18 Cost/GS point: 0.018

6. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter: Another fun game. The online achievements are harder so I am omitting most of them.

Score: 700 Cost: $15 Cost/GS point: 0.021

7. Gauntlet, TMNT 89, Golden Axe, Time Pilot: I had fun reliving my Arcade days and earned some GS points as well!

Score: 120 each (480 total) Cost: $5 eachCost/GS point: 0.042

8. Eragon: If you don't expect to much from it, you might not be let down.

Score: 1000Cost: $18 (I got it for $10)Cost/GS point: 0.018

9. Shrek the Third: Better than Eragon.

Score: 1000Cost: $18 Cost/GS point: 0.018

Total Score: 7380 Cost: $115 Cost/GS point: 0.016

By little Stevie.

First we dwove a long long way and I was so bored and I had to pee and the food tasted sooo bad and at first it was too cold and then it was too hot. And when we FINALLY got there, the place was smelly and there were supposed to be cowboys everywhere, but they were fake.

And then these other people came (I think they weresupposed to be like my fake Mom and Dad)and they brought fish with them and they cooked it and then it was really stinky! And they went pee lots of times every night and it woke me up.

And then I got to swim in the pool! It was a little cold, but I swam anyway. We went to this place that was called 'Lake Pleasant' but I was like 'It should be called Lake Unpleasant because it's really unpleasant." And I wanted to swim there but it looked nasty. Then we did some stuff and took a lot of pictures and climbed some rocks, and then we had a long long long drive home and I felt sick but then I slept and slept for a long long time and I felt so much better.

And then I was home.

And that was what I did on my vacation.

My last post is about something I'd like to forget, so I am going to post a quick games related rant to try to get things back to normal.

Presenting: What I don't like about you, video games!

I do not like Platformers. Sorry Mario! I need something more than timing jumps. Ever since the deadly quicksand of Pitfall, I've hated the concept of terrain that kills with a touch. I can swim people! There must be something I can do if I fall in the water. I also don't like falling from a cliff- I should at least have a chance to hold onto something! I've hiked some mountains here in Colorado, and I have seen very few spots where a slightly wrong move means instant death. But your worst crime is poor controls. Way too many platformers have poor detection, sending you off into deadly water even when you did your jump perfectly. Even if all of these faults are fixed, I need something more. A platformer/RPG hybrid would fit that bill nicely- thank you Super Paper Mario!

I do not like First Person Shooters: They have a steep learning curve (using way too many buttons) and I like to game to relax. A lot of them use the checkpoint system, which I don't have a problem with in theory, but in practice leads to sessions where I game for a couple of hours and do not manage to pass the checkpoint. Or it saves the checkpoint right as I am about to be killed. Why not just let us save the game? I do not like infinitely spawning enemies. I'm pretty sure the Nazis started running out of men during WWII, especially when most of these games take place, after D-Day. But of course my main complaint with FPS's is the online community of FPS players. Luckily this is the most easily avoided pitfall of this genre. In fact, Bioshock avoided that altogether.

I do not like Japanese RPGs: OK, I admit, I do like them, but I can only tolerate them in small doses. I do not like their annoying teenage characters and dialog that looks like it was written for someone just learning to read. I do not like their useless plots and linearity. I do not like having to grind for hours to make it past the next boss. But most of all I dislike random encounters. I don't like entering a new area and seeing the exit on the other side and wondering how long it will take just to walk there because every 3 steps I will be assaulted by an invisible group of gremlins. Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon have changed this formula slightly for the better, but I still don't like having to run back and forth like crazy just to avoid a random encounter. I might as well just fight them at some point.

I do not like Real Time Strategies: Once again, I am gaming to relax and have fun, not be punished by a computer that can instantly get to where it wants on the map instantly. I also like the strategy aspect much better than the tactical aspect, and, unfortunately for me, RTS's have become more tactical than strategic. I want as much time to make my moves as I need. If I am going to command vast armies, I'd like to have a skilled officer corps that can do most of the tactical thinking while I make strategic choices and perhaps command a couple units. Sorry, Starcraft, but I like Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron better.

I do not like Sports Games: A waste of time. If I wouldn't watch it on TV I don't see why I would want to play it. Possibly only good for achievement points.

Well, perhaps I have been too harsh. All of these genres have games that I like. And most games have at least one thing good about them. But I know what I like, and I try not to spend money on what I don't like.

You have been duly warned, and this post will be a whine and a self-indulgence.

First of all, let me say that my life is great. I live in a rich nation, I have never gone hungry in my life and I probably never will. I have a beautiful and loving wife and a beautiful and loving daughter who is also very smart. I have a great job at a rich company that provides generous benefits- if I continue to work here it is probably that I will have no problems sending my daughter to college or having an easy retirement.

Now that I've qualified myself, I have to say that my company is having layoffs. As in today, in 10 hours or so I may no longer by employed here. So I am super nervous. I was diagnosed with cancer last year and though I am currently cancer free I have to go in for CT scans and X-rays every 2 months. I have seen the bills (which I don't have to pay due to my company's awesome health insurance) and they are on the order of $4k each. If I am laid off I definitely will not be able to afford them. Unless I am lucky it seems unlikely that I could get into a company as generous as this one.

Arg.

So anyway, my life is great if I can get through this one night!

Edit: YES! Made it! Now I can go back to thinking about my one true love: Games! I mean my wife and daughter! Yeah, the second one.

When I was a youth, back in the early eighties, my father bought an Apple II and subscribed to Family Computing. This opened up a whole new world of video games. One day my father brought home a game, a present for me, and popped it in the drive. He was as excited as I was. After the first few minutes, he became much less excited and gave up. I went on to win the game and read and re-read the manual dozens of times. That game was Wizardry.

The plot was junk by today's standards. But it certainly beat Rogue's 'go to the bottom of the dungeon and get the Amulet of Yendor and come back up'. You could actually have persistent characters in this one! There were even prestige classes! Sadly, it did little to innovate beyond a basic D&D rip off; the 'armor class' ranged from 10 to -10 (I still remember the picture of the guy in the loin cloth standing next to the Sherman tank to describe the concept of armor class), hit points, level, stats going up to 18. But still, I could now play D&D without having to try to get someone else to play! There were crude pictures and even a sound effect- Anyone remember Bleeping Blobs? The computer would beep as it wrote the words Bleeping Blobs on the screen. The most powerful spell in the game, Tiltowait, was described as a thermonuclear explosion. Yes, this game was Fun.

After this I was entranced, and the computer RPG entered a golden age. There were sequels to Wizardry (both were basically the same game as Wizardry I) and The Bard's Tale (and many sequels) and Ultima I and II. When I saw Ultima III, I thought the RPG had reached its pinnacle. It had an open world, plenty of characters to interact with, lots and lots of stuff to do and a GOOD PLOT!!! Richard Garriott (Lord British) offered himself as the main good guy in most of the Ultima series and became much more famous than the writers of almost any other RPG, even Wizardry, which had Trebor and Werdna as characters (two of the main designers' names spelled backwards).

I played many beautiful games in the years that followed- Might and Magic, Magic Candle, Phantasie series: all relied on a slightly quirky sense of humor and created fun and varied worlds to explore. One of my favorites was Deathlord, by the now reviled Electronic Arts. I must admit I never finished this game (it was huge and pretty hard), but its setting (Japanese) and major differences from all the other major RPGs made it one of my most played games ever. Another one of my favorites was Wasteland, developed by Interplay and published by EA. Again, the innovative setting (post WWIII), depth and humor made this one of my favorite games. Plus, who wouldn't want to turn someone into exploding blood sausage by pumping a whole clip of ammo from your AK-97 into them?

As time wore on, it was obvious the Apple II and IIe was dying. I loved the final RPGs of that computer: the first few Gold Box D&D games from SSI and a beautiful Sci Fi epic called Centauri Alliance. Ultima V was an incredible game and made me learn Elvish runes. All of these games had fabulous game manuals, sometimes over 100 pages long. The last game I played on the Apple was Demon's Winter, an uninspired game by SSI.

Luckily, I quickly switched to PC. Beginning with games like Telengard and Angband, I slowly moved to some of the best PC games of all time- Might and Magic Clouds of Xeen, Darklands, Hard Nova and Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant.

But in '93 I graduated high school and went to Brandeis University, or Brand X University as we called it. Unfortunately, this college was Mac land and I was stuck, RPGless, in Mac land (not to say that there weren't a lot of cool Mac games). I missed a whole bunch of good RPGs, but when I graduated, I got my PC back in time for some more awesome games. Fallout 1 and 2 are cla$$ics in the vein of Wasteland and I gobbled up all the Black Isle games I could get my hands on (Icewind Dale 1&2, Baldur's Gate 1&2 and my favorite of all time, Planescape: Torment).

It was about this time that I became aware of JRPGs. I saw several friends grinding levels, but it sure looked annoying. Then a friend called me in for some cut scenes in FF VII- and I realized I had been missing a lot. But I still prefer the western $tyle of gameplay.

But it seemed the Western RPG genre was dying- Sir-tech, Origins, SSI and New World Computing had died long ago, Black Isle was mysteriously disbanded and Interplay died a slow, painful death. EA was basically ignoring RPGs and Sierra's attempts were half-hearted at best. The only developers left producing quality RPGs are Bethesda and Bioware. In fact, it was Bioware's romance with the Xbox that led me to pick that console over the ubiquitous PS2.

Perhaps consoles killed the Western RPG, as it was a genre that was mainly computer based? If so, then we may be seeing the beginning of its revival. KOTOR 1 and 2, Jade Empire and Elder Scrolls III and IV sold well, and more recently, Bioshock was a mega-seller (I would consider Bioshock a western RPG more than a shooter). Mass Effect appears to be on the verge of redefining what can be done with consoles. So I am hopeful for the future. The Western RPG isn't dead (especially with Bioware being so solid) but there sure seems to be an empty spot where there used to be many developers. And there must be more like me who grew up in the genre and now have the money to buy games (we are in our 30's now)- so shouldn't the free market fill that niche?

Edit: On a completely unrelated subject, here is a review that my single player friends will love. I did not want to make a whole new blog post just to post this link. If you like this one, check out the rest of his video reviews, they are uniformly hilarious.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2304-Zero-Punctuation-Halo-3

OK So I am a newb and this isn't working right... Um, scratch that, it's working now.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ENCHANTED ARMS!

Not that you probably care.

I just finished Enchanted Arms this weekend. It is not a good game, but it does innovate some. One the most interesting twists is that one of the main characters is gay And by gay I mean flaming like the sun. And he actually gets to kiss one of the other main (male) characters at the end of the game (against his wishes).

And I was thinking, well, there aren't many gay characters in video games. The only other one that comes to mind is Jade Empire, which has a gay love arc, but if you didn't choose to play that way you didn't have to. Also, Mass Effect, also a Bioware title, is supposed to have even more homosexual choices to choose.

But these are the few examples I can think of.

You might say, well, being gay is not mainstream, and that's what video games are all about. But a lot of movies and most TV shows have at least one token homosexual, and a lot have an openly gay important character.

So my question is, can you name some video games with gay characters? And why do you think there are so few?

Opinions are like @$$holes: everyone's got one, and they all stink.

But here's mine:

I am truly upset by the national debt. In case you didn't know, we are $9 trillion in debt. And that doesn't even include the money that we owe ourselves and will have to pay back to the 'lock box' when social security starts giving out more money than it takes in.

$9 trillion is a hell of a lot of money. That's $30,000 for every man woman and child in this country. And if we only include the people who pay taxes, it's more like $60,000 each. How many people even have a net worth of $60,000? Less than half of the taxpayers I'd guess. At 4%, the interest on it along is about $1 billion per day. I don't care how you phrase it, but this is not good and it has to be fixed.

How do we fix it? I'm not sure, but I have a good idea. Stop spending so much! First of all, the Iraq war has got to go. We've spent too many lives and too much money on this useless war already. It's like Bush's pet project. We also have to cancel a lot of other pet projects- an infamous one being Alaska's bridge to nowhere, but there are a million others, including all the crop subsidies. I'd also love to see the military funding to other countries be eliminated- yes, they are our allies, but should we be the ones protecting them? The most flagrant examples are Israel and Saudi Arabia. Neither of these countries are poor, and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, are unofficially helping a lot of groups that want to destroy us. Not to mention that our troops' mere presence in Saudi Arabia's holy cities has enraged many Muslims and helped swell the ranks of would-be terrorists. Before the whole Iraq debacle, that was Osama's main recruiting argument.

The only candidate who seems to care about this (and consistently tell the truth about things) is Ron Paul.

If you haven't heard of Ron Paul, it's probably not your fault. The mainstream media mostly ignores him as a wacko. Well, he is a bit of a wacko, but George W. turned out to be one too. But the reason he is ignored is because he is deemed to have no chance of winning. Well, true, he probably won't win. But I want to send a message that I do not want business as usual. So I'm going to vote for Ron Paul.

I just hope he runs as an independent once the primaries are over.

I am the father of a wonderful 5 year old girl. She was born with the chord around her throat and a look of pure terror in her eyes. Luckily the nurses were quite competent and before I even knew there was a danger they had her untangled and breathing oxygen in a heated bed/box. They put antibiotics in her eyes and she cried for the first time. My wife was drugged up, hypertensive and exhausted, but otherwise fine. It was the happiest day of my life.

We have later found that, barring a miracle, another child is not in the cards. But raising this child has brought me more than enough fulfillment, more than any job has ever brought me.

She is a blank slate, and she accepts anything I tell her. Well, almost anything. Talking about Jeebus brings protests of "Daddy! It's Jesus! Not Jeebus!" She is quick to laugh- I love playing a physically goofy stunt, and that never fails to bring her mirth. The past 2 weeks I have been teaching her to play frisbee. She is getting quite good at throwing it, though still not very adept at catching. And yet, even when the frisbee hits one of her little fingers and hurts her, she is willing to go on playing, just to spend time with me. Even when I am mowing the lawn, she'll run out and swing on the swing set and babble at me non-stop, even though I can't hear half of what she is saying.

Every night, when it is time for bed, she is always asking me to read her one more book. And when it is time for the goodnight kiss, she always turns it into a game, hiding under the blankets and forcing me to steal my kiss.

But one of the greatest feelings is when she learns something new or accomplishes something that gave her trouble in the past. This summer she passed 2 levels at the local pool's swim courses and is getting really good at swimming, already better than her mother (who grew up on an island I might add!) She can also write any letter in capitals, and will try to read almost anything, which is great since I don't know of any other kindergarteners who are interested in reading. She has a while bookcase of small books that she is reading, and every time she reads another one by herself I give her a high-five. It really makes me feel great.

So to any of you who are thinking of becoming parents, I highly recommend it!

The rise of BioShock has finally given me the ammunition to make an unpopular statement: Single player is still better than multiplayer.

It seems like the industry has been focused more and more on multiplayer these days. Xbox Live has been a big success and now the other 2 consoles are trying to break into that market with varying success. Up until Bioshock there was a single title that was synonimous with quality on Xbox 360- Gears of War, a game with a single player campaign that has to be described as stunted. The flagship title for PS3, Resistance, Fall of Man, is pretty much similar, focusing on MP over SP. And let's look at the near future. The biggest game coming out this year is Halo 3, the sequel to the 2 games that put Xbox live on the map. There are more and more multiplayer only games coming out, and most games have spent at least some resources on a multiplayer mode.

There are a lot of Pros to multiplaying. The social aspect is huge, you feel like you are playing with someone or against someone real. It seems like the biggest rush is when you 'own' someone. The competition is always keenest when there are hundreds of people around the world competing against you. And you don't have to worry that idiotic AI will make the game unplayable.

I won't go deep into the Cons of multiplaying, I'll just make a short list. There is trash talking, cursing and general rude behavior, griefing and outright cheating. It is hard for newbies to learn when so many are ready to beat you then berate you for not being good enough. A lot of multiplayer modes feel 'tacked on', barely fleshed out extra features that don't play well and were made merely to be able to put 'multiplayer' on the box. But, for me, the worst part is that there is a lack of plot. Multiplayer games have a hard time making you feel you are on a space ship or in the middle of WWII when somebody starts talking about modern things or talking trash.

Single Player has very little of the social aspect, but in almost every other regard it is a superior gaming experience. AI is getting better and better and can be almost as smart as an actual living opponent if enough time is spent on it. Single player games don't have to worry about too many people doing too many things at the same time. You can feel like a unique person in a differentiated world. Without having to worry about MP, the developer can devote more time and resources to graphics, audio, and especially plot and character development. And the greatest part of single player games is that they can be immersive, which is not really true of any current multiplayer experience.

Look at Bioshock. A lot of love and effort was put into the plot, and it shows. And that's not all- the atmosphere, sound work and voice acting are all superlative. Playing alone, in the dark, fixated on the images of Rapture, it is easy to lose yourself into another world. And there are many more games that this can be said of: Oblivion, Morrowind, Call of Cthulhu and many more.

Of the games coming out this holiday season, other than Halo 3, they are mainly meant to be played in SP mode. Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, and GTA IV (yes I know it's been delayed, but it's my blog so I'm including it!) are all mainly single player. In fact, Halo 2 received quite a bit of flak for leaving out the depth of single player that was evident in the original, so I am betting Halo 3 will have a renewed emphasis on the single player campaign.

And of the games of the past, the vast majority of the truly great have been single player. All of our nostalgic favorites, from arcade to AppleII and PC to Atari and Nintendo were mainly single player, and these games are having a revival with the rise of the Wii and retro gaming. For every World of Warcraft there are several Morrowinds or Oblivions, for every Halo there is a KOTOR or a Fallout. Yes, the age when everyone has high speed internet is quickly approaching, but for now, Single Player is still King.

Edit: Today it was announced that FASA had shut down, mainly due to the failure of the cross platform multiplayer game Shadowrun. This game was heavily marketed and lost a lot of money. I loved the Shadowrun pen and paper RPG and was rather miffed when I found out this title was being made into just another FPS- and worse, an FPS without any story mode at all. Maybe this situation will teach the industry not to cater to the flavor of the month (online FPSs) and spend more time and money making games with strong stories/single player modes to back up any multiplayer aspirations they might have.

So long FASA, you will be missed. Hopefully, this shooter half-a-game won't be remembered as your only legacy.