Vote or Die!

Do I care about politics?  A little bit.  I mean, so far as it impacts me, or the worlds perspective toward our country, the economy, etc.  However, I really don’t care that much.  I care enough to watch the debates, then go out on election day and cast my vote.  What I don’t care for, is how suddenly, around this time of year, every four years, everyone is a pundit.  Everyone has their super strong views, and goes around spouting nonsense to everyone else.  Everyone has such passion toward their candidate.

I will go on record as saying, I do have passion toward my candidate, a little.  I do want Bush out of office quite bad.  What I don’t have passion toward is watching every asshole become an expert.  Having to bite my tongue around the office because my political views do not agree with most other white-collar peoples views, and having my precious twitter and wow chat rooms constantly full of political jargon.

I was thinking today, how many millions of dollars were spent on this campaign, and, how much of it will be filling our landfills tomorrow?  Well, according to this site, the total cost of the combined presidential campaigns this year was OVER A BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS.  For what?  Travel, food, websites, stickers, signs, and various other things that will be in the collective countries garbage can tomorrow?

I wish the process in this country worked a bit differently.  Between the conventions, the debates, and the news coverage it felt more like watching a big sporting event with the two main event boxers constantly bad mouthing each other on some grand stage then it felt like choosing the next leader of our country.

Worst part is, that even with all the advertizing, I’m still not sure why I voted the way I did.  The issues weren’t clear to me, all I know is, tax-cut this, gay marriage that, pro-choice, etc.  But what about the issues that really AFFECT ME.  I don’t know what those issues are, nor do I know where our candidates stand on them.  What I do know is, based on all those commercials, McCain is one maverick who sure doesn’t like Obama, and, Obama likes the word change, a lot.

So, I guess I will go back to not being all too concerned with it.  To all those of you who are feverishly refreshing election results websites.  Take a break for a few hours and put on fox news.  The Black Panthers are forcing all republicans to vote Obama.

Remember that show?!

Over the years I have followed the best of the best guilds in World of Warcraft quite closely, it is almost like following the rankings of the teams in your favorite sports, who will kill what first, who is the best at the time, what the best players are up to, who is using what strategies, etc.  One thing I have noticed which seems to be becoming a popular trend is a “No Girls Allowed” policy enacted in many of the best guilds in the world.  But why?

While this might appear sexist, I do not believe that to be the case.  I believe it is merely the leadership of said guilds recognizing the weaknesses of their players, and avoiding any unnecessary conflict.  This weakness being, girls.  The average male MMO players are single males in the age range of probably 18-30.  Generally lonely, and horny.  When you introduce a female into this environment, they become an immediate distraction.

Many people probably assume, wrongly, that these guilds are full of sexist assholes who think girls simply aren’t as good of players as men are.  This is not the case though.  Many girl gamers are just as good if not better then men are, and if you had to take a survey, I would be willing to guess that a better ratio of the girl players are actually good players then the men are.  This is of course probably due to the fact that there are so few female gamers vs male gamers, that there is much more room for suck with so many men playing.

To quote the VANQUISH recruitment policy (VANQUISH is a top 10 world guild):

Due to our history and experience we’ve had with female gamers, we currently do not recruit players that lack a penis. This can be taken another way but in this case, we mean literally lack thereof. Some of you may think this is sexist, but you have to understand, when you put a female in an organization with a bunch of sex deprived World of Warcraft nerds, their hormones get the best of them. Women in World of Warcraft guilds cause more drama than ‘TNT’ and this is a no-drama organization.

So, is this the fault of the women?  No, I don’t think so, but I also do believe the above is an entirely true statement, and that it should be a guilds peroggative to not allow girls in it.  So, exactly what impact does having no girls in a guild have?  Well, severeal of the top 100 guilds in the world do not allow girls, explicity, others perfer not to have girls, but will make exceptions, but most, do not discriminate.  So obviously, allowing women does not stop some of the best guilds in the world, from being the best.

What it boils down to, in my opinion, is simply wanting to avoid the all too common drama associated with guilds in wow, and the desire to remove any possible cause of said drama.  So, do girls cause drama?  Yes.  Absolutely.  By no fault of their own, though.

So what sort of drama and favoritism are we talking about?  Quite trivial things really, but usually enough to cause a stir.  These things range from: girls being flirty, or accused of flirting with other guild members to get what they want, girls being given “gifts” from other members, leadership being overall nicer and more forgiving toward girls, girls being given special treatment with regard to loot, or other things like this.  When exposed, it usually pisses people off.

Case Study

As an example, my girlfriend is a wow player, in fact, I met her in wow.  (Relationships starting in games will be an entirely separate post).  When we met, I was an officer and raid leader in the guild she was in.  I should mention though, and she will back this up 100%, that I for one, never gave her any special treatment, ever.  This did not stop the drama though.

Going backwards a bit from the above, we were in the guild together for over two years before we even spoke, I was just the mean old raid leader, and she was just another member who I treated just like everyone else.  She will tell you stories though, about some of the other leadership.  Before my guild adopted an open bid/fixed price DKP scheme, it was a closed bidding, highest bid wins, system.  This means, you send a message to a leader about how much you want to pay for an item, and if you bid the highest, you win.

She can tell you first hand, that many times, she and the other girls would bid on items just to have the officer taking the bids reply simply saying “bid more”.  Essentially awarding the loot to the girls to be nice.  The girls did nothing to expect this behavior out of the officers, did not ask for this treatment, yet, accepted it.

This is just the tip of the iceberg really, in the past year sitting next to her playing together, I cannot even being to count the amount of items, gold, or other sorts of help my girlfriend gets inside of an mmo, just because she is a girl.  She is not outwardly slutty, or flirty, just her cute female self, and men just feel compelled to help out or be nice.

So where does the drama start with regard to my experience?  It is quite simple really.  Once it was openly known that myself, and my girlfriend were seeing each other, members began to assume that something fishy was going on.  Simple things like treating her special, awarding her DKP which was not earned, giving attendance credit where it was not due, etc, etc.  While this was not the case at all, we began to have every aspect of everything we did in the game inspected under a magnifying glass and treated as if we were under suspicion.  This annoying drama, is what eventually lead to her and I both quitting the guild, and wow.

So as you can see, it is the fault of women that my old guild lost two of its best players, right?  All sarcasm aside, obviously it was not her fault, however, in a guild absent of women, this will NEVER happen.  Can you blame certain guilds for wanting to avoid this?

Some things are just never acceptable.  A club full of only white men, with only white men allowed, people automatically compare to the KKK, and assume it is a racist group.  A club full of only women, is perfectly okay, and no one will complain.  I feel it is the right of the guilds leader to allow women or not, and no one should complain about it or find it sexist.  Some feminist groups have even gone to extremes, such as hacking the guild websites of guilds which do not allow girls, even though there are probably more guilds in mmo’s which are girl only guilds, who never get bothered by anyone.

Further Reading

An editorial arguing for the girls

A blog post against women in guilds

A child named Violence roams the streets.

• Princess Tiaamii (Jordan / Peter Andre)
• Audio Science (Shannyn Sossamon)
• Camera (Arthur Ashe)
• Fifi Trixibell (Bob Geldof and Paula Yates)
• Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence)
• Kal-El Coppola (Nicholas Cage - Kal-El is Supermans birth name)
• Lark Song (Mia Farrow)
• Moon Unit (Frank Zappa)
• Dweezil (Frank Zappa)
• Ahmet Emuukah Rodan (Frank Zappa)
• Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen (Frank Zappa)
• Sage Moonblood (Sylvester Stallone)

So apparently this trend amongst celebrities has begun to trickle down into average homes.  This is the reason for my writing this as I found a recent news report where New Zealand had made certain names illegal.  Some of the names which were made illegal are:

• Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii
• 4Real
• Fish and Chips
• Sex Fruit
• Yeah Detroit

It should be noted that these names were made illegal after they were used, which means that people actually tried to name their kids this shit.  What is even better is that some names are not illegal, and are apparently in use:

• Number 16 Bus Shelter
• Violence

I honestly wish my name was Violence.  I would love to name my kids something funny for the sake of humor. Hell I named my dog “Dirk”.  But they need to realize that the child needs to live a, hopefully, very long life with the name you have given them and that naming your child Sex Fruit is simply not cool. Should it be illegal though?  I tend to think not.

If some crazy ass parents want to name their kids stuff like that, let them.  I know the kids shouldn’t suffer but the courts didn’t have a say in my name so why should they have a say in anyone else’s.  If my legal name was Sex Fruit Eugene Chain, I would tell all my friends my name was Bob or Joe, and when I was old enough, I’d get it changed.  No need for the courts to intervene.  I’m not a law expert but doesn’t this violate free speech?  I understand they don’t have a Bill of Rights in New Zealand so they aren’t held to those rules, but I would hate to see anything like that ever happen in america.

I thought of some cool names for kids while writing this, and I only hope I am legally allowed to use them:

• Chest
• Miller Light
• Rothschild
• Enhance
• Picard

Feel free to name your kids any of the above, I won’t get mad.

It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole.

Obviously this was intended to imply that their ticket collections system was comparable to a black hole where things which enter it, never escape.  I do not know much about the Dallas municipalities and their issues with ticket collections but when seeing this statement, no matter what the context, I do not see any semblance of racism.

Simulated Image of a Black Hole

However, commissioner John Wiley Price felt that this sort of language was unacceptable, and racist. (You can view the original video of the conversation here.)  This is all fine and good, I suppose he is entitled to his stance that a black hole is a racist construct.  However, after watching the follow-up interview, it is clear that he is either just being an asshole, or he is truly ultra-sensitive to race issues.  I will transcribe a portion of the interview below:

Fox:  Tell me again why you took offense to what Mr. Mayfield Said.

JWP:  Well, first of all I probably just took offense to Mr. Mayfield.  That’s number one.  Number Two, its back to the culture, you know.  The culture in terms of blackness is negative.  It doesn’t make a difference if, you know, it becomes a scientific phenomenon, you know because a scientist could have just as easily called it a white hole.  Why didn’t they?  You know, and in this society anything that is black is seen as negative.  So you name one comment “Oh, it’s in the black”, that’s one positive.  But you tell me one thing in this society when you say white and get a negative connotation.

So if its Angel Food Cake, it’s White, Devils Food Cake, it’s Black.

If you’re the black sheep of the family, then you gotta be bad.

You know, white could be ok.

Fox:  So should people be extra careful now, what they say?

JWP:  Well you know I think people should always be careful.  You know, I’m ok if I’m bartering with you, so.  But if I try to Jew you down, oh is that racist?  I thought it meant the same thing.

(continued on this video)

So lets analyze the racial connotations of some of the things he mentioned.

Black Hole vs. White Hole

A black hole is a phenomenon in space where gravity has become so intense focusing on a singularity that nothing, not even light, can escape it.  Black is a color, or the lack of color which can most easily be defined as describing absence of light.  If a black hole was called a white hole it would simply make no sense, at all. A “white hole” might be more likened to a sun, or something extraordinarily bright.  But of course, white people get good things like stars and suns, and black people only get black holes, these terrible destructive things.

Angel Food vs. Devils Food

Angels are something believed to exist in heaven.  Heaven is perceived as a very bright, cloudy, white place. Angel food cake is very light, airy, and white in texture.  It would not describe the cake well to call it devils food.  Devils are something believed to exist in hell.  Hell is a very dark, sinful place.  Devils food cake is a very rich, dark, and sinful food.  To me, these descriptions simply make sense.  In fact, I like devils food cake better, I doubt many people would tell you that dark devils food cake is terrible and that it was designed in order to further oppress black people.

Black Sheep of the Family

The term “Black Sheep” originated back in the 18th century.  In flocks of sheep there is always a chance that the babies will be born with black coats.  When you are raising sheep on a farm for profit, black wool is worth much less than white wool, and as such raising black sheep was undesirable.  This got taken out of context to describe a troublesome or undesirable human child.  There was never a racial implication to the expression.

Bartering vs. Jewing Down

To take Mr. Prices example of a similar expression to the above, but not related to the african-american race, he used Bartering with someone vs Jewing Down.  Since Jewing down would be usage of the perceived stereotype that Jews are cheap, I see using the term Jewing someone down as racist, without any doubt in my mind.  It does not fit with his other examples at all.  He was obviously stretching here.

What have we come to in society?  I realize that racism is still a huge problem in this world, and that there is a need to be aware of it.  I realize that some people are more sensitive to it then others.  Does this sort of extreme sensitivity really exist though?

I tend to think not.  I believe that he simply was unaware of the scientific construct of a black hole during the meeting and as a knee-jerk reaction took offense to it.  After he learned what it was, to save looking like a moron during the second interview, tried to maintain his stance and make off the cuff supporting examples which just make him look like more of a dick.

If there are more people like this guy out there, then I truly feel sorry for them.  They must not be able to go even a few minutes without becoming offended by something or someone and probably live an angry and miserable life.

I really don’t understand people who are so sensitive to these issues, just let it roll off your back, the less it bothers you, the less people will use it against you.

1. Currently I have Sprint, which has terrible coverage in my area.
2. My current phone is a Palm Treo 700wx, which pretty much sucks.
3. I have been shopping for a GPS Unit for my car for a long time.
4. iPhone is $199, GPS units cost at least that much by themselves.
5. AT&T has great coverage in my area.

So, to me the decision was easy.  I mean, don’t get me wrong I do like apple products, but I didn’t run out and by the original iPhone, it just wasn’t worth it.  The 3G iPhone is feature rich and very competitively priced.  To be quite honest I don’t see why there is so much animosity toward iPhone fans/owners.  Many people have smart phones which are just as expensive if not more.

Another point I would like to clear up is that I did not camp out for it.  I simply called the Apple Store in my local mall, they told me they had plenty of inventory, so I went.  I went at 2PM.  The line was very long and I stood in it for about 3 hours, but what else was I going to do?  Here are some shots of the line taken using my Treo.

The line was very calm, lots of conversations going on, kinda fun actually.  The problems started happening once I got into the store, which was at about 5pm.  I had heard there were lots of problems apple was having activating the phones.  This was the case for me.  I suppose I was asking for it though when I decided that I would get two iPhones on a family plan porting one number from Sprint, and one from a Pre-paid account.  The problems seemed to come from the number porting part of things for me.  They actually had to send two 16gb iPhones back to warehouse because they got “half-way activated” and could no longer be sold.  So I formally apologize to those two people who couldn’t get a phone because of me.

All in all, the process was pleasant, I left the house in the afternoon, and got back home in time for dinner with a shiny new iPhone.  Whoever camped out for it, I feel sad for you.  I took some obligatory shots of the unboxing process for your viewing pleasure, sorry they came out like crap.  Even though it is against the grain of the normal topics I write about I plan to write another article this weekend outlining the process I have gone through setting my phone up to sync with my various computers, windows and mac.

I am so glad you asked!  

Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight. (from wikipedia)

I have been seeing so much of this going around over the past couple of years that it has essentially turned digg.com from one of my favorite sites on the internet, to one of my least favorite.

I discovered Digg back in probably 2005.  As you can see from my member profile, I have been a member since 2005 and I have clicked “digg” on a very small handful of stories.  When I first discovered it I thought it was the best site ever.  Constantly updated with interesting and relevant posts which were always sure to entertain.  It completely replaced Slashdot for me, and solved most of the problems I had with slashdot.

Since that time it has become…something different.  The first time I saw an issue with Digg is when it was quite clear that the top stories were submitted by the same people, all of the time.  It was later found that the algorithm used to decide the promotion and demotion of stories could be easily abused.

What basically happened is, groups of friends submit stories and digg each others stories.  It is also believed that people who have more friends, and more frontpage stories, have the ability to digg something with a heavier weight.  So essentially what was going on is, people with large groups of friends got large amounts of “automatic” diggs from everyone on their friends list, leading to almost anything they submitted hitting the frontpage, and anything they bury, not.  (see more here)

It was also believed that this power was easily bought and sold, as the amount of traffic you receive from a digg front page story is massive, and obviously quite valuable from an advertising perspective.  

This has since been resolved and there is now a much more diverse set of stories reaching the front page, except now I have a new problem.  It seems that the entire site is ruled by the tendency for its users and their opinions to be governed by the laws of groupthink.  Essentially the uses of digg can be quite easily categorized and the types of pages that reach the front page can be easily predicted.  I have even heard of trends where advertisers, or simply people with ulterior motives could wrap their content in something which might interest digg users.  For example, write a blog entry about some sort of iPhone gossip but have that page intentionally spattered with ads or other sorts of links to a completely different type of product.  Basically duping users into going to their site to read false gossip about one thing and being tricked to get information about a completely different thing.

So onto the groupthink, and why I personally have learned to hate digg.  It basically boils down to the immaturity of its user base.  Everyone who submits a story, wants it to reach the front page, so as such, people follow within whatever is the hot trend at the time.  Digg used to be a news site, a tech related news site.  It has since devolved into a place where people will do anything to make the front page.  As a user of digg I see several trends, of which, I have no statistics to back up, but I will mention them anyhow.  I will make each point with the percent hit modifier bonus to get digg front page.

1. Follow the Leader.
   This mostly relates to politics.  For about 4 months half the stories on digg were about Ron Paul.  Shortly after which, it was a quick focus shift to Obama.  Whoever is in the lead on the left wing, everyone on digg loves.  Whoever is right wing, they all hate.  So, articles which talk down to the right, +25%, articles which talk good about the left +25%.
2. Apple is God.
   Submit a story about the iPod, iPhone, or anything else apple related, you have a +50% chance of getting front page
3. Linux = Ubuntu.
   Have an interesting story about linux, a cool new app, or some interesting how-to article?  Replace every instance of the word linux with the word ubuntu, +30% chance of front page.
4. [PIC]
   Doesn’t matter how old it is, post it up!  +75% 
5. Misuse of the words Web 2.0 or AJAX
   Hey if its dynamic it must be web 2.0, or ajax, or something right?  +10% 
6. When all else fails, post an old video.
   Got a video from break.com, or youtube which is already on the front page there?  Might as well be on the front page of digg too right? +20% 
7. BREAKING NEWS.
   Who are you, Ted Koppel?  Here is some breaking news:  Posting a story to digg which links to another actual news site, is not breaking news.  Thanks for trying, you get a +90% modifier. 

All of the above, I feel are the results of a massive groupthink epidemic.  The types of stories which make the front page form a trend, and as such the submissions begin to follow that trend.  Digg is no longer about sharing news and information, it is about submitting whatever you can to make it to the front page.  The problem is, the subject matter which makes the front page anymore is getting dumber and dumber, and I check the site less and less.  What is funnier though, are the problems people run into when they try to submit an actual worthwhile piece of news.  As seen in this recent parody, it is as if the power goes the users heads, and almost nothing worthwhile ever gets read.

When you take a group of like minded people, you’ll get a set of like minded opinions.  The stories which make it to the front page of digg are an approximation of the relative intelligence and opinions of the users who post stories there.  I only wish that one of my submissions might one day make the front page so that I may be a part of what I am apparently missing out on.

Gaming is:  A waste of time.
Watching TV is:  A waste of time.
Watching Movies is:  A waste of time.
Sitting around drinking beer is:  A waste of time.
Reading Magazines is:  A waste of time.

Now that we have that out of way, when people look at me as an adult gamer, they find it hard to understand why I play games.  It is such a waste of time after all, right.  However, if I sat home watching re-runs of Law and Order for a few hours each day after work, I would be a perfectly normal adult.  So unless you come home from work each day and build shit, work on some sort of constructive project, spend time bonding with your kids, or something else relatively constructive and good for you, what are you doing.  Wasting time.  I simply choose to play games vs. the other things on my very short list above.  So, take that into account when reading the rest of this article.  

I have some friends who simply refuse to play Guitar Hero.  Why?  Because they feel gay, or silly sitting there with a plastic guitar.  However, they will sit and play sports games with a little plastic controller, or play the Wii with a little plastic steering wheel all day.  Why must it be so different.  ”I’d rather just play a real instrument” is another common answer I hear when people decline to play Guitar Hero.

Now I understand that everyone has their preference when it comes to games, even if that preference is to not play games at all.  That is fine, everyone is entitled to that.  I rarely hear anyone say “Meh, I just don’t like that game too much” when it comes to GH though, its always something about feeling stupid, or playing a real instrument.  Now, I can definetly understand not wanting to look like this guy:

But in reality, who cares what you look like when you are just hanging out at someone’s house around some friends?

Lets make a comparison.  On the left is the game, or type of game, and on the right would be the real life equivalent.  I am going to try to use games that tons of people play in this list, as to save myself having to explain that further.  I am also going to avoid fictional genre games like Halo, since you can’t go and shoot aliens in real life.

Guitar Hero -> Playing Guitar
Dance Dance Revolution -> Going to a club and dancing
NBA/NHL/NFL Games -> Playing real sports
Call of Duty -> Joining the army and killing people
Splinter Cell -> Becoming a Secret Agent
Tony Hawk -> Skateboarding

These are what I will call “reality games” as they simulate things you can actually go outside and do!  Unlike Mario, or World of Warcraft, or Halo, which simulate things you can’t do.  Many people will argue that the purity of video games is to put you into some sort of fictional world doing things you can’t do in the real world, thats why they are fun, and thats why they are acceptable.  Much like reading a great science fiction novel, you do it to enjoy simulating things which you could never actually do.

Reality games though, which are increasingly popular, simulate things you could actually go do, but in a more grandiose way.  In Guitar Hero you aren’t a shitty guitar player in your house, you are a rock star god.  In NBA games you aren’t shooting hoops in the local park, you are an NBA super star.  So the essence of fantasy is still there.  The fact that they are still a waste of time, is there also.  I think the perfect joke against all reality games, even though it was aimed directly as a stab at guitar hero, is heroin hero.

The thing is, when is the last time you heard someone say to you during a session playing Call of Duty “Why don’t you go join the army and kill arabs?”, or when you are playing NBA 2k8 “You should just go play basketball all day and become a pro”.  Are these valid things to say?  Of course they are.  If kids these days spent as much time doing the real life equivalent activity to they game they play, maybe they could become rock stars, pro athletes, or super spies.  I will never argue that.  Just like I won’t argue that parents might be better parents if they didn’t spend so much time watching television.

So why so much ridicule for Guitar Hero?  Its just a fun simulation of being a rock star.  You press on little colored buttons at the right time to win.  Same as any other game.  Sure the little plastic guitar is silly looking in the hands of a 6′ 6″ adult, but in reality it is no different from any other video game in the world.  An entertaining way to pass the time.  

The bottom line here is, no one who plays Guitar Hero actually thinks they are accomplishing anything.  No one thinks they are getting better at the real guitar when they play it.  Just like no one who plays Madden 2009 all day thinks it makes them any better at football.

This article is a perfect example of the mentality I am trying to argue against with this post.  Much like theGuitar Queer-O Episode of South Park.

This game is making people spend hundreds of hours in front of a TV and make pretend that they are playing actual guitar whilst being damn good at it. It really reminds us of the time when we were little and made fun of girls to have a make pretend tea party. Yeh, it is probably more faggish than dolls because females actually learned and practiced how to be housewives. This is due to the reason that people who actually play this game have absolutely no skill with the real guitar yet think of themselves as cool because they can rack up a score of a million in an hour.

Entertainment people, thats all it is.  Now playing the drums in Rockband, thats a whole different story.

Metal Gear Solid 4

So I started the game out on “Big Boss Hard” mode and it took me about 4 hours to get about an hour into the game.  Even though I generally play every game I get on the hardest skill level, it got so frustrating that I finally just kicked it down to the normal difficulty level.  It became a lot more fun after that, since the game is about sneaking around everywhere and the only way we were able to succeed on hard was to shoot everything, really took the fun out of it.

After I finally got a chance to play without dying every 10 seconds, it didn’t take long for me to realize just where the rumors of the game possibly requiring more than one Blu-Ray disc came from; cut scenes.  In fact, as the title of this post says, my friend and I quickly realized that we might have been spending more time watching cut scenes then we were actually playing the game.  Each day after dinner one of us would say “Hey wanna go watch some Metal Gear?”  And watch metal gear is what we did.

I searched high and low and I was unable to find exact figures, other then this, which is highly argued about what “running length” they are talking about in the article.  According to everything I can find, the best estimates of total cut scene length in the game is 9+ hours.  When we finally finished the game we had logged approximately 19 hours of game time.  We are still unsure if the total time we get at the end includes the length of the cutscenes, or if it was only timing us during actual gameplay.  I honestly can’t even take a guess as to weather we played the actual game for 9 hours or 19, which I believe is a testament to how good the game actually is.

So lets just assume there is actually 9 hours of cutscenes.  This sounds totally crazy right?  Well, I can say from experience that it certainly felt like there was 9 hours, if not more.  I will also say, that I was never bored, not even for one minute, during my time playing the game.

This game truly impressed me and made me finally realize the potential the PS3 actually has.  Prior to Metal Gear I never felt that the PS3 was superior to the Xbox 360 in any way.  I have owned an Xbox much longer then my Playstation and when a game comes out on both consoles, I always get the Xbox version.  However, I feel the PS3 will be a lot like the PS2, meaning it will LAST.  Games are still coming out for the PS2 and it is almost 10 years old.  I don’t want to get on too much of a tangent here but I must also say that contrary to much criticism, putting a Blu-Ray player in the PS3 was absolutely the right choice for Sony.  Not only did it essentially win the format war for them, but it also gives them a lot more potential for games that wont fit on a conventional DVD.  Games like Metal Gear.  I also just want to mention here real quick that while I was also an avid HD-DVD supporter, after it finally lost the format war, I invested in Blu-Ray, obviously.  Watching a Blu-Ray movie on my 1080P 60″ TV is absolutely the most pleasurable and impressive HD viewing experience I have ever had.  It completely blows anything you’ll ever see on an HD tv channel.

So back to the game.  I have always been a huge Metal Gear fan.  I have to admit though, I never actually owned a Playstation 2.  It is the ONLY console I have not owned, ever.  I am still not sure why I never got one, I think I was just too busy in college, and too broke, to get one.  So you can say, well, you missed the two best Metal Gear games ever by not having a PS2.  While I am inclined to agree with you, that didn’t stop me from reading a lot about the elements of the story which I missed out on by not playing those games.  Going into MGS4, I was totally caught up on the story.

The gameplay is phenomenal, the controls work wonderfully, and there are many elements of humor throughout.  While it has many many unique features which the other games did not have, the game still feels extremely familiar, and easy to get the hang of.  I have seen a lot of people complaining about the excessive length of the cut scenes, but to be perfectly honest, I enjoyed every minute of them.  It was nice to essentially watch a movie between each mission.  A welcomed break.  Not to mention the story line flows like an epic trilogy all rolled up into one long ass movie.  The plot of the game integrates perfectly with all of the other titles and it is very interesting to watch it unfold.

While there were a lot of cut scenes, I still feel like there was more then enough gameplay.  Surprisingly, there also seems to be a great amount of replay value.  It is very seldom I play any linear single player type game through more then once, and yet I fully plan to play MGS4 again.  Maybe I’ll even play it on hard mode this time!  I haven’t even begun to explore the online component, and I missed almost every secret item during my first play through.

Basically, to sum it up, Metal Gear was an extremely fun game, and had a very captivating plot.  The length of the cut scenes was not a problem for me at all, and it finally made me realize just how powerful the PS3 is.  If there ever was a “killer app” to come out for any console in history, I’d say this is one of them.

If you get a chance, I highly suggest you watch Metal Gear.