That is what happens when you don’t get your girlfriend on the junket, she is forced to insert joysticks in her twat. I guess this goes as mature discussion of gaming?
I like how her boyfriend just kept playing the game. Then, in an exciting climax, they discuss the game play elements after she’s done.
Can you really be that bored with your partner at that age??
Yeah, it’s a bit juvenile in subject matter, but the writer’s a better stylist than most of the game writers you see on the web.
“The game is, truly, a stunningly beautiful thing. It is a “music shooting” game, but of such elegance and coolness it’s in a genre all its own. The premise places you as a futuristic hacker, avoiding security systems and navigating through databases to crack codes in a way strongly reminiscent of Tron. Your mission: information needs to be free. “Flying down neon corridors shooting space/machine beings in time to techno music”, as Justin put it, is a pretty good description, as is “Tron on Ecstasy.” The game bills itself as synesthesia - union of senses. But even that doesn’t begin to relay the feeling of the game. Even without the trance vibrator, the game puts you into a trance state - it’s a raver’s game, a game of pure sensation.”
That’s not bad, is it? I’ve certainly seen much, much less interesting writing related to games elsewhere. A writer can insult me, patronize me, condescend to me, scandalize me, anger me, and more as long as the writer is more clever than not. The unforgiveable sin is to be boring.
This is the same site that brings us great gaming journalism profiles such as:
I don’t know the other two gentlemen profiled, but after having read Mr. Au’s pieces on Salon I was not impressed.
[Grammar edit]
By professional standards, it’s a bit silly. By Internet standards, they’re master wordsmiths.
The bay-area Well.com thing puts Au in a context where he almost makes sense. A philosopher, though? Egh.
From the Au piece:
“Oddly enough, my first published piece was not only fiction, but erotica…”
The thought of the type of erotica he would write gives me the willies.
Troy
A comment from this profile:
Instead of being some sort of rabid fanboy, did you ever consider getting a real jounalisim job? Video and Computer games are cool and all, but hardly a necessity for survival. I am even going to quote you, when you said, “I’d recommend going to a college and attempting an English or arts major. That way, you can fall back on something when this whole “video games” phenomena implodes.”
Are there still people that think video games are like CB radios?
I’m still waiting for the whole color TV thing to blow over.
An English degree to fall back on? Man, if that’s a sure sign of someone who hasn’t had to make his way in the real world.
Imagine trying to ‘fall back’ on an English or arts degree:
“So, Mr. Au, I see by your degree that you must have read The Canterbury Tales? Well, that’s that, then. Can you start on Monday?”
-Tom
An English degree to fall back on? Man, if that’s a sure sign of someone who hasn’t had to make his way in the real world.
Imagine trying to ‘fall back’ on an English or arts degree:
“So, Mr. Au, I see by your degree that you must have read The Canterbury Tales? Well, that’s that, then. Can you start on Monday?”
-Tom[/quote]
That’s nuts. I did not go for an English degree for the very reason that it was not pragmatic. Of course, the default option of Business Management does not exactly have me on the road to easy street.
Anyone remember when they said that Rap music wouldn’t last?
What would you recommend? Without experience, many degrees are pretty useless.
If a person wants to be a writer, having an English degree isn’t a bad thing. And the fall back might be teaching, technical writing, editing, news writing, etc.
What would you recommend?
A degree in theology, all the way! That’s how I landed my glamorous career as an ad copy writer turned actor turned game reviewer.
But point taken. I just never heard an English degree mentioned as the practical choice when it comes to entering the harsh reality of job searching.
Plus, now that Erik’s backed off, I’d hate to miss an opportunity to make fun of Au.
-Tom
Any employer values good communication skills when choosing an employee. An English degree demonstrates a good sense of the language. I think an English degree would be much easier to apply than say, Social Sciences or something like that.
Ohmigod – James Wagner Au IS MY MOTHER!
Next he’ll be telling us to get a haircut.
I think the only practical choices out there are degress related to computers, communications, and business. Anything else, and you’re expected to attend grad school. Including English.
I can’t believe you were a theology major. That is too cool.
Engineering degrees. I acutally wasn’t aware communications degrees were useful, but that’s just because most of the chicks that I see on Sorority Life have them.
As I coldly planned my non-gender-specific vague romantic actions of a possibly sexual nature, my partner’s thoughts turned, as they always do, to the lack of a Jungian archetype in Battlecruiser 3000. Truly, we as a species will never progress unless we master, in games, art, life and sex, the will to power. Then I consummated the ultimate act of art and sacrifice, but she and or he did not appreciate my pain. She and or he never did. DAMN them.[/i]