Return of the Regular Guy

As the lyrics go, It’s been a while… So how are you? Glad to hear it… me, I’m not so bad. I’ve got nice things on the horizon, or rather us PS2 owners do. If you look to your left you’ll see Spiderman (game based movie action hitting us around Mayish). If you’ve seen the recent trailer for the video game you’ll be just as excited as I am. And over here to your right is Headhunter. What do you mean you’ve never heard of it… Take all the good from MGS2 mixed with Syphon Filter and add a touch of emotion engine and you get what could be a sleeper hit of ’02 (look for it in April). What’s that big empty space you ask? Well my friends that used to be where Medal Of Honor: Frontline used to be, (March), now we’ll all have to wait until June to see this gem of engineering. But all of that is okay because more time means better game (most of the time).

While I’m here, I thought I’d make a comment not just on the new stuff on the horizon we should all be excited about but also about recent court news. No not me this time. If you haven’t heard, a judge recently dismissed the charges brought against the gaming industry. These charges came about days after the Columbine tragedy. This is also when human nature kicked in and everyone needed to find someone to blame. A new target was acquired in Nintendo, Acclaim, ID Software and Activison. What does this discussion mean? Well for you and me it reinforces what we’ve been saying forever, that it isn’t video games that kill its people that do. I look at this a victory for the gaming industry. Now, I’m not saying we go have a parade or anything but we can sit back and whisper, “I told you so.” I don’t want to come off as heartless but the one thing I hate more than a certain “box” and “cube” is mob mentality. For those of you in the back that don’t know what I mean by such a phrase, it means when one thought is yelled in a crowd and more then one person agrees, then mob rules.

After Columbine and now, more recently, 9/11, video games have been a nice big fat and slow target for PTA’s and other organizations who are trying to make a name for themselves. Relax, I’m not going into this debate, all I want to say is let’s look at finding the real causes of these problems. Let’s start listening to each other and not waiting for someone to hit us in the back of the head with a sledgehammer to get our attention.

Thanks for listening…