Lemmings and Cows and Sheep, Oh My!

Yeah, I think I over did it with the Wizard Of Oz reference. Anyway, people love to label things. This is no mystery and anyone familiar with gaming culture might recognize what these 3 animals mean. Basically, lemmings are Microsoft fans, cows are Sony fans, and sheep are Nintendo fans. I've seen this shit explode before my own eyes and thankfully the terms are becoming taboo but, the mentality that spawned them hasn't died. If you have any bias towards anything at all, you're automatically a "fan boy". You know what, fanboyism (or fangirlism if you have a vagina) was totally okay until insecure crybabies made a big deal out of being "objective" and it's shit like this that prevents gamers from being taken seriously. You wanna know something else...this is politics all over again.

You know how Republicans are represented by an elephant and Democrats are represented by a donkey. Have ever wondered why that is? Each animal is more or less a symbol of their groups ideals and characteristics. Think about elephants for a minute. They're big, powerful, and they never forget (supposedly, I'm not a zoologist). Mice, which are tiny and weak by the way, scare the shit out of them. Now look at donkeys. They're stubborn, considered to be generally ignorant, and it better hope no one calls you one because that's considered an insult. Come to think of it, how the hell is a donkey a positive symbol for anyone? You'd think that would send the wrong message. Maybe it has something to do with donkeys not taking any shit. It's really hard to force those things to do something (again, not a zoologist). Granted, the reasoning behind these symbols and their origins have very little to do with the actual parties themselves. Hell, neither party really chose their animals, they were assigned to them by cartoonist. Either way, the point is, no matter what animal you are, these are simply labels used to generalize groups for the sake of convenience. You know the kind of convenience that creates ridiculous stereotypes.

You see, the reason I'm so fucking terrified by the idea of voting is because I can't trust either party. Why the fuck would I? Politics is a glorified game of poo-flinging. The "elephants" talk shit about how the "donkeys" are ruining America and the "donkeys" go on about how the "elephants" are destroying the country and once the song and dance is over, practically nothing changes (for the better anyway). This is what smear campaigns are all about, making the opposing side look as terrible as possible so you can win people over. Hence, you have people throwing around words like "terrorist" when referring to Barrack Obama. That's pretty scary considering how influential a lot of these voices are whether they're members of congress or just some random people pulled off the street. As a  result, we're constantly at each other's throats regarding our differing opinions on politics despite the fact that we mostly share a common goal; we just want what we think is best for our country.

What could all of this possibly have to do with fanboyism? Well, when you have a bunch of gamers dividing themselves into smaller and smaller groups in an attempt to prove which systems, franchises, etc. are "just", all you get are gamers attacking gamers for having different opinions on video games which something all gamers love. If they didn't, they wouldn't be called gamers. The cruel irony of "fan boy" hunting is that we're essentially calling people out for having preferences in video games. Funny thing is, there are still people out there demonizing us for playing video games altogether yet, we expect them to stop attacking us when we can't even stop attacking each other. This is something I've always disliked about being "objective". Your interest in genre, consoles, franchises, etc. have to all be put aside so you can judge a game "objectively". I understand this to an extent. We shouldn't let our bias stop us from trying new things or seeing a honestly good/bad game for what it is. The problem is that "objective" usually translates into "least offensive opinion" or "opinion your supposed to have". This is probably why games score 8s and 9s so easily because anything lower turns the comments section into Lava Reef.

It doesn't take a genius to tell you that most of this madness stems from insecurity. We have the this need to feel reassured by other people, usually our peers, in regards to damn near everything so when it comes to whether or not we have "good taste", we need a seemingly endless amount of reassurance so we can feel like our opinions are justified. That's understandable. I know how it feels to be an outcast for the most ridiculous reasons. The way I look, talk, walk, act, etc. were all bashed to hell and back when I was a kid so that feeling of shittiness when everyone and their mother calls me an idiot for having an opinion that differs from the majority isn't new but, it still doesn't feel good because now I have to deal with a sense of wrongness. After all, if thousands of people believe something and you don't, those people couldn't possibly be wrong, right?

Well, they could of fooled me with the kind of asinine justifications and flat-out excuses for why the majority is magically right just because it's the majority. I'm not saying majority opinion is always wrong but, if thousands of idiots believe something that one genius doesn't, the genius is still right. The problem here is that people nowadays can't even dream of giving clarified and logical explanations for their beliefs. So instead, we form groups with people who share our specific views and either attack the shit out of anyone who disagrees with them or play the "it's just your opinion" card so we can still basically ignore any criticisms and nobody gets their feelings hurt (a mentality that embodies everything that's fucked up about political correctness).

This is why voicing your opinions on anything (god help you if you're in the minority) is one of the most seemingly hopeless and terrifying things you could do, especially over the internet (which apparently isn't stopping me) because you have no way of knowing if you'll be loved for your insightful views or condemned for being wrong about everything. By "condemned", I mean emailed various death threats. Now, I wouldn't suggest that people simply cower in fear of each other's judgemental views on their opinions but, this does explain why some people (including myself a while back) prefer to keep to themselves rather than risk the internet's cruel and usually nonsensical rejection.

Funny thing is Lemmings, Cows, and Sheep (also Hermits but, nobody today seems to give a shit about PC gaming) are nicknames mostly exclusive to GameFAQs but, you know what, that doesn't matter. Just replace the animal names with the term "fanboy" and you'll see this shit pretty much occurs on practically every gaming website imaginable in some way or form. Why do you think Youtube comments are so...well...like Youtube comments? Just to clarify, this issue isn't exclusive to gaming one bit. You're bond to have similar discourse arise over movies, books, music, etc. However, none of those mediums are still fighting for the right to be seen as "art" and if we ever expect gaming along with gamers to not been viewed as children, we all need to acting like children. I guess as a big fan of video games, I'm naturally going to see general issues like this as if they only apply to gaming which they don't.


All I know is when the original Halo: Combat Evolved came out and I started talking shit about it to my associates. They were not happy. I said it was generic, boring and even said that Japanese people were easily entertained by shit like Halo which exampled its success. That was of course one of the most uneducated and downright stupid (and pretty racist too but, I was in middle school back then of course was some kind of stupid) things that have ever escaped my lips. They're respond to this was pulling out a candle lighter and threaten to set me on fire. I apologized, took back what I said about Halo and the Japanese (which was made all the more embarassing when I found out Bungie was founded in America) and I finally agreed to play Halo with them like were begging me to. I still didn't enjoy it and I don't understand what's so damn great about Master Chief. More disturbingly, I'm left wondering to this very day if their sky-high voices and threatening me with a lighter was just a joke or if I had insisted that Halo was still shitty, would they have really set me a blaze?


My point is that while I was definitely in the wrong for having such a misguided view of the game, these guys decided that instead of giving a well constructed counter-arguement to correct my uneducated opinion of the game, they threatened to perform a real-life "flaming". I did mention this happened in real-life and not over the internet right? So next someone gets shot for believing in the "wrong" god or gets their teeth smashed out for liking the "wrong" flavor of ice cream, keep in mind that some guys (who I obviously don't talk to anymore) threatened to set me on fire for saying Halo wasn't a good game. Somehow, XBox Live being filled with assholes makes a lot of sense now.

Graphics Matter. They Matter A LOT.

You know the old saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover". It means you should look past appearances and learn to appreciate something for its value, not just looks. People go on about being loved for their personalities, not just their looks and some gamers are quick to say that a game's graphics doesn't determine its quality. These are very understandable and very true assertions. A woman with big breasts doesn't necessarily have a big heart and a game with top-notch visuals doesn't guarantee good game play. I agree with this statement wholeheartedly but, whoever the fuck said "Graphics don't matter" is full of shit.

Graphics matter. They matter A LOT and it has a lot to do with your taste in food and sex. For starters, I want you to ask yourself what you like in a video game. What is the first thing you look for in a game before you purchase one? What do you look for in a partner before dating him/her? What do you look for in a meal before you indulge it in for the first time? No matter how you answer these questions, you'll always be shallow and you know what, there isn't shit wrong with that. You see, people are shallow by nature and there's a pretty good reason why. It's called standards.

If you've ever taken a sex education class or know what it's like to make love, you probably already know that your body gets "turned on" by certain aspects of your partner. Maybe it's their big butt, ripped abs, or even the shape of their nose. Unless you're blind, your eyes pick up visual queues that cause your body to react in that special way and even if you can't see, your sense of touch can have the same effect. It's nature's way of saying "He/She is fertile" or "This person is attractive". The keyword here is attraction.

The only real reason besides scaring off predators that male peacocks have big and vibrant tail feathers is to attract mates. So naturally, if Mr. Peacock wants to get his freak on, he has to put on show. That's why people use make up, go on crazy diets, and bother with hygiene. It's all an attempt to look attractive so they can win over that special someone or just get hired for a job. No offense to anyone but, we don't live a magical world where all is just and fair though, everyday I wish that were the case. "Ugly", as subjective as it is, is still a negative trait and it's one pretty much anyone who gives a damn about...well anything is generally trying to avoid wither it be an ugly appearance or ugly personality.

You see, whenever you see something ugly, you see something wrong. Bad smell, bad looks, bad taste and such are just various ways your body recognizes flaws. You wouldn't eat food that smelled like literal shit would you? Even if was the most delicious and nutritious food on Earth, would you still chance it if the smell made you want to vomit? Usually when something smells bad, it taste bad too. I think we all know sour milk doesn't taste any better than it smells. Just like we know that we aren't going to form meaningful relationships with people we can't bare to look at. But let's say you meet this really great person online and you can't wait to meet them in person. Then when you do, he/she turns out to be the ugliest living thing on the planet and now it's no mystery why they never posted pictures of themselves on the Internet. But you figure "Hey, they've got a great personality" and you stay with them, share all your deepest secrets with them, and live happily ever after because you don't care about race, gender, or weight and you love that person for who they are on the inside. And you know what...you're STILL shallow.

The idea of eating a pie just for the filling is just as ridiculous as eating it just for the crust. That is unless you don't like the crust or filling in which you'd be better off with a good combination of both rather than settling for one over the other. And yet, there's this misconception that value is determined by depth alone (which is horseshit) and that anyone who dates, eats, and buys based off impression is somehow shallow and therefore bad because they only look skin deep. Funny thing is, too many people don't care about depth for such a idea to be relevent to how are society works and even if you date people with good personalites and ultimately never prejudge anything based off appearance, you'll still be shallow in the end because your only going out with that geek with the thick glasses because he/she tells funny jokes or you love to eat Chicken Alfredo because you love the creamy taste of the noodles combined with chewy, zesty chicken bits. To be "deep" should mean you have more than one reason to like or dislike something. Instead, the word is being used to define what is essentially a complete lack of both objectivity and subjectivity.

Ever see the movie Shallow Hal? It's about some pervert who only dates women for their looks until some guru puts a spell on him to make him see their "inner beauty". He then starts to go clubbing with women his friend thinks are ugly as fuck. He eventually falls in love with a morbidly obese woman and the two get into a very serious relationship. Then shit hits the fan when his friend breaks his trance and all the "ugly" women look "ugly" again. Of course now he's terrified that if he sees the girl of his dreams to be the queen of seacows she really is, their relationship will fall apart. As you probably guessed, he learns to look past her 300 pounds of lard and loves her for who she is on the inside and the two lovebirds live happily ever after. The catch? This bastard literally needed to be tricked into dating unattractive women. Everytime he had sex with his fat girlfriend, he thought he was plowing a supermodel. It's funny because the movie's "moral", if you can honestly call it that, is that true beauty isn't skin deep and yet it enforces the exact opposite. He wouldn't have said one word to her if he wasn't brainwashed into thinking she was anything other than fat which, in hollywood, means your instantly ugly (go fucking figure). All this movie did was help prove the point I'm about to make: No One Is Attracted To Unattractive Things.

I know what you're thinking, "What the hell does all of this have to do with graphics in video games?" Well, it has everything to do with it. You see, the fact that looking good, standing out, and basically shaking your peacocks feathers is the only real way to get attention is the main reason animators, graphic designers, and box artists all have jobs in the first place. If no one cared about looks, strip clubs would go broke. If no one cared about graphics, the Nintendo 64 wouldn't be called the N64 because who gives a shit if it has 64-bit visuals or not? All those high-definition trailers for upcoming games are eye-catchers. It's the companies way of "shaking their feathers" so to speak and get you interested in their product and half the time, the trailers don't even have game play footage but, when they do, you best believe their gonna try to doll it up as much as possible because, let's be honest, if they didn't put on a show, they wouldn't sell any tickets. That's why ads and commercials are crucial to game's financial success. Simply having good game play isn't enough when no one knows your game even exist.

Hell, this is why female characters are usually half naked with barely covered breasts. You think Dead Or Alive got to where it is now because of its game play? Please. All that stuff I said about human sexuality is the main reason characters like Mai Shiranui exist. They give the game sex appeal which would of course make any already visually appealing game even more appealing because now your hormones wanna buy it too. There's a reason characters like Lara Croft aren't sporting double chins. If they didn't meet the status-quo of what is considered attractive, consumers wouldn't run out and buy a copy eagerly wanting to learn about her backstory. They're just gonna see some "ugly" chick on the cover and write it off which is unfortunately one of the main reasons the industry has become somewhat stagnate but, that's a whole blog post in itself. Bsaically, to ensure a game has a chance at making a profit, it has to look the part and make its presence known. It's the same reason why popstars, regardless of musical talent, are mostly about image. Who would go to their concerts if all they had to look forward to was good music? No dancers. No special effects. Just a couple of guys on stage playing instruments and singing. That kind of bland and cheap presentation sure as hell wouldn't rack in cash in today's world so it's ludicrous to even think of making it look bad on purpose.

That's what I don't understand. If you had to choose between a nice ugly person and a mean pretty person then you're probably better off the the nice ugly person. Given that same choice but, not knowing who was the saint and who was the asshole, chances are you'll end up with the attractive one. Why? Because they're attractive. So if you had to choice between a ugly ass game that looked like shit and one that looked fucking fantastic, not knowing anything about the game play, you know damn you'll pick the game that looks good because that's the one that will most likely be good even though that isn't a guarantee. Now if I gave you a choice between two versions of the same game but, one version had better graphics, why the fuck would you willingly choose the version with shitty graphics? You wouldn't, that's why.

You know, I remember when the 3 current home consoles first came out and everyone was dogging on the Wii cause the games didn't look good. Being a lot less judgemental, I told people that all because the graphics on most of Wii games at the time weren't good didn't make them bad games. Then this one guy responded with, I kid you not, "If a game has good graphics, it has good game play". Of course, I thought he was crazy. In fact I still do but, the sad truth is that the average consumer doesn't have particularly high standards when it comes to actual game play. You'd have to actually give two shits about hub exploration, item management, and challenge to point out just how streamlined a game like Final Fantasy 13 is but, if sells proved anything, it was that no one really cared that the game practically played itself. Visuals are the first thing people see and ultimately those along with demos (which quite a few companies don't like having for their games) form whatever prejudgements they have about a game which then encourages or discourages their purchase. Sure, personal taste, peer pressure, and such factor in but, their opinion on the full product doesn't exist yet because they don't own it yet and when they do buy it, wither or not they like doesn't mean shit anymore. That $60 you spent on that new game says you like it. Fuck enjoyment.

This is where everything works perfectly in all the wrong ways. Since people aren't as "tasteful" as they like to believe and game companies only really need to care about selling a game, not really needing it to be good as long as it's good enough, game companies can essentially produe shit in a box and it would sell like hotcakes and in a way, that's exactly what half of these guys are doing right now. So I totally understand people wanting to look beyond just a games visuals but, the sheer idealism behind being so "enlightened" that you like a game for it's game play alone is just as shallow of a mindset as those who believe good graphics is enough. This isn't just because your willingly choosing to ignore other aspects of a game in favor of others regardless of quality but, because most people who say this are simply full of shit. It's like when a guy tells a girl she has a beautiful soul. That's just his way of begging for sex most of the time. People do this "I'm so deep, I'm so smart" routine and some of us who can't tell the difference between fakers and the real thing fall for it. It should come as no surprise that the "Graphics don't matter" phrase usually comes out of Wii fans or fans of games with generally inferior graphics. What better way to overcome your insecurities about your preferences than to pretend an entire chunk of the gaming industry doesn't mean anything. Heaven forbid they make games with good graphics AND good game play. That's just popotsterus.

All and all though, I do wish people would be just a little more analytical about their purchases because if you buy shitty games, all that says is that these companies should make more of them and never bother to change but, if you see no problem with this then be my guest. Oh, and the next time someone says "Graphics don't matter", tell them that they're fucking wrong or better yet, link them to this blog. It'd be a shame if I took 3 hours to write a post no one reads.