So I talked my husband into an hour of Discovery HD Theater.... called Gamer Generation. We only watched part 1 because we can't bear to be away from our computers for that long. :P Kidding.... kind of.
ANYWAY - for those of you who missed it, here's my recap of what it discussed and what I thought.
First, they discussed the creator of the Sims and Sim City (etc) and Spore. The game looks a lot cooler in HD and when and if it is ever available, I'm sure we'll get a copy or two. There was a lot of focus on the huge shows where gaming companies portray what they're working on - new games - new consoles - the works.
Second they discussed Korea. Now I dunno about the rest of you, but this whole section seemed behind the times to me. Although I have to admit, I like some of what they had to show. Apparently that really old game Starcraft is still hugely popular there. So popular that they have these huge arenas where 25,000 people pay big money to watch them compete. Yikes! Seems interesting - but it's definitely.... odd.
The next part was about America's Army. First, I never knew the game was free and second, didn't realize that it was created by the Army as a recruiting effort! They actually urge soldiers to play the game! Insane! I considered downloading and trying the game until they said that once you die - you stay dead. That's ick. There's a reason I love gungame and Natural Selection. You respawn INSTANTLY. I hate the down time.
Then they had a long huge part about gaming in Arab countries. Now no offense to anyone who made this show, but I used to teach at a Muslim school (no I'm not Muslim or from the middle east or any of that - I just happen to have my teaching degree). There was NO WAY that any of my parents or students would EVER play a violent game - ever. Most of my students were not permanently here in the US and almost all of them went home to their Arab countries during the Summer (and often during religious holidays as well). So I find it hard to believe there's this huge group of people who want to play games in those countries. BUT - assuming I'm wrong (like that ever happens!) they discussed a game made by a middle eastern company which was funded and sponsored by the palestine government. Apparently there was some distraught feelings regarding all the FPS games from the "west" where Arab's were always the enemy and in their opinion - "losing everyday". Now no offense, but there are no Arab's in Day of Defeat. There are no Arab's in Natural Selection. There are no Arab's in Battlefield 2142. Who says the guys in CS 1.6 or CSS are Arab's? Can I not have brown hair, brown eyes and a tan and not be Arab? Regardless, this particular game is based on an actual event where some guy shot up a mosque and killed a ton of people. Quite frankly, this whole part of the interview was disturbing. (like the little boy who goes on and on about why are people always killing the Arab's in the games? Why aren't the Arab's killing them? Uh... okay lil boy)
Finally, the most upsetting part of this documentary at least for me was about the effect of gaming on all of us - the gamers. There was a whole discussion on about how gaming makes us all killing machines and has adverse affects on us. They even had that Jack Thompson guy on there going on and on about how it makes us killers. Well, honestly, if Natural Selection makes me more apt to shoot something I see that looks like a huge gremlin with razor sharp claws - bring it on. There were references to Columbine and some kid who shot 8 people - 5 of the shots being "headshots".
I spent the first 5 or so years of my CS career playing with mostly the MP5. During that time, I could take out an entire team with just my mp5. I was pretty good for the average gamer hanging out in public servers. BUT - when I went and tried out the MP5 in real life at a shooting range - not one bullet hit the target. So saying that playing these games makes it possible for you to shoot people with more accuracy - please.
Anyway, we'll see what Part 2 has in store when I get around to watching it in a couple of days. Apparently there's a lot of focus on the "uber geeks" of that crack game called "WOW". Maybe there'll be a lot of fast forwarding since RPGs are so unappealing to me. We'll see.
