It is a good thing for game recognition out there in general society, else we will always be a subculture. Once we are accepted by society as a culture unto ourselves (some say we are, but the targetting of politicians and such say otherwise. You no longer hear of movies being attacked for sexual and violent content, do you?) is when we may…I wish I could keep my thoughts going in one straight line.

The fact about non-gamers getting the culture into the public’s eye is misrepresentative. It would be like a stereotypical blonde cheerleader averaging B’s only due to the integrated courses she takes being the frontperson for the Academic Decathalon or some such intellectual competition. Sure, it gets the point across, but it doesn’t show the truth, and that is precisely what we need. Especially at times like now, what with ’scandals’ such as Hot Coffee and the escalating violence in games affecting the minds of the currently faceless ‘gaming population’. It’s easy to say something without a face is being manipulated, but when that something gets a face and a voice, things change drastically. Gay rights, for instance, wasn’t bothered with until some gay people stood up and complained. The saying ‘the nail that sticks up gets hammered down’ held true for a little while, until all of the nails were standing up. That’s when things began to change, and that’s what we need to do. We need to rise up as a single culture, full of it’s unique twists and special flaws and everything, and say in one voice ‘This is us! We have minds of our own and we refuse to fit into your perfect mold any longer!’

And one of my favorite quotes…

‘We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish, without a fight! We’re going to live on, we’re going to survive.’

The larger issue though of the non-gamers playing off the mass “cool” of gaming is an important one. Is it a good thing to get game recognition out there in the general society, even if it’s accomplished by non-gamers? Or are we as a gaming community somehow losing our integrity to the mass culture? Thoughts?

I started this comment for one point, and my ramble-prone mind took it somewhere else. Gamers and the gaming population have become elitist! If you don’t know certain things about certain games you don’t belong, or are in a subset directly set against the questioners. If an RPG-subset asks an FPS-subset a question about VII, they may or may not know. If they do know, it’s no big deal, but if they don’t it furthers the rift between the two. We even have elitism inside of our culture, nevermind the mobs of unwashed masses that are the non-gamers. What strikes me as odd, is that among games of skill (such as RTS, FPS, etc. ) the better players don’t seclude themselves from the lesser via elitism. In fact, with Warcraft III, you hardly see that (when you get passed the initial, idiot-infested playing levels (as all games have)). There is _respect_. I have a friend who nearly _worships_ Grubby, who is supposed to be one of the best War3 players in the world. Of course, there’s always his natural tendancy to minorly obsess, but…

It’s saddening, though. It used to be that being ‘cool’ was cool. Then, it was being ‘uncool’ that was cool. Then something else, and now being a ‘gamer’ is cool. I walk around my high school and _spot_ people wearing shirts displaying gaming icons and simple phrases like the NES controller and ‘Know your roots’. And just by looking at them you can tell that they have never even picked up an NES controller, let alone a SNES, an N64, or regularly one of the current gen systems! You see some wearing shirts with the Legendary emblem and the Legendary quote on the front of the shirt and the Halo 2 emblem on the back, and you can feel the inability to play the first level as Heroic. I hate to use this word, but we’re becoming _infested_ by posers. I can only hope that Fate will deem that we’ve had enough problems and make something _else_ ‘cool’.

‘Woe be to us, those pitiful creatures bound by the sickly humored Fate to be subjected to the torture of our fellows.’

It’s a real time strategy game, and those don’t usually focus on the storyline very much.

.. Well, don’t get me wrong; the storyline is there. Blizzard’s Starcraft and Warcraft series’ spawned entire universes including books. But when you get that feeling of emotion that overrides everything else.. you’d expect it to be an RPG.

The graphics were state of the art for its day, but those aren’t what propelled it to glory. Doom 3 was technically superior to anything preceding and was nothing in the least special.

But Homeworld was a perfectly produced work of beauty, from the maneuvering fleets to the ancient relics to the gorgeous nebulas, to the small, single blue planet in the last mission that meant everything. Everything. That made it all worthwhile.

Not to speak of a completely unexpected plot twist that hits right out fo the bat, and unlike most disasters actually emotionally affected me.

Games like the renditions of Mario were classics, artistically crafted with simple yet wonderful themes and colors; other games like Warcraft 3 and Starcraft are just fun no matter the looks, and RPG’s like Final Fantasy and KotoR let you pilot a a group through their destiny.

All of them have their points in favor. But none of them, none of them come close to the complete planning of every aspect that made Homeworld what it is to me.

*looks* The CD is beautiful. The CD jewel case is beautiful.. I even still have the music cd with the instrumental game rhapsodies.

And I can just stare at the cover, on and on, and remember.

Yeah, that’s art.