Quick Blurb - Mass Effect

Bioware may be truly redefining video games as we speak. The dialogue system, presentation, and story of the Mass Effect series actually takes gaming in a new direction.

It's a direction where intense narratives in games is no longer niche, but mainstream. Where people want to play the game for the story of saving the Galaxy, not to shoot things.

Any journalist, media historian, or media studies buff should really be taking notice. I suspect that in the next 10-12 years there will be some major changes in the delivery of narrative in games that isn't about pure motivation, and could result in truly validating the medium in the same respectable light as film, music, and other high arts.

We need man-sized fruit snacks

Fruit snacks are delicious. These bite-sized bits of glory take anyone back to their elementary school days. There's a fundamental problem with them, though.

They're meant for kids.

Really, peruse the snack aisle at your local grocery store and you'll find boxes of Gushers, Welch's fruit snacks, Betty Crocker, General Mills; basically every brand of fruit snacks are packaged in small doses.

Nutrition facts and serving sizes aside, basically every 20+ year old male will agree that they could pound down at least 3 of these small packages in a sitting:

I guarantee that most guys love fruit snacks. I also guarantee that the first company that makes and markets some big, man-sized portions of fruit snacks will almost make millions of dollars.

Dear Subway: please use different knives

I love sub sandwiches. To me, it's like having a delicious sandwich of choice elongated to suit your appetite. Most people, myself included, completely dig Subway's subs. Delicious, fresh veggies topped off on good cuts of meat... I'd go there every day if I could.

But something really gets me about Subway.

For those that don't know me, I have a distaste for most condiments. Like others, I can't stand the sight, or smell, of things like ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise. It gets to gag-reflex points. I send food back when these things are on it (and I always ask to have my food without).

Mayonnaise especially gets me. It's basically disgusting fat, right? Why do people eat it? Practically the whole world has agreed that mayo is disgusting.

For what it's worth, yes I have tried Miracle Whip. Yes, it is equally disgusting, you sick people. It's like smoking clove cigarettes, it really doesn't make anything better for you.

Back to the topic at hand, Subway. See, Subway is very good about keeping gross things like mayo off my sandwich. Still, other sick people get these condiments on theirs.

Subway provides the service of cutting your footlong sub in half, so you can easily hold your sandwich while eating it. See where I'm going with this?

They use the same knife for all sandwiches.

See, Subway, you're missing something. I asked for no mayo. The knife you used (which they don't ever wash, and always looks like it's caked with everyone else's condiments from their sandwiches) to cut my sub was used to cut the person's sub in line before me.

And they asked for mayo. You put that knife in mayo. I do not want mayo on my sub. That knife, full of mayo, went through my mayo-less sandwich.

So, Subway, change this. What if someone has severe allergies to disgusting things like mayo? You're killing this segment of the population, and making me tear off pieces of my sub, carefully examining for any gross white stuff.

I want a two-knife rule for every Subway. One for the mayo subs, and one for the rest. Make it happen!

Ten Top Wii MotionPlus Ideas

Recently, I posted a pretty rad editorial @thewiire detailing top ideas I had for MotionPlus gaming. Be sure to check it out and leave your own ideas in the comments!

Additionally, Chris Holzworth is starting up a column with us, and his first one is live on the site as well. It centers around what Nintendo needs to do at E3 to gain him back.

Or, as Chris would say, give him a "nerdgasm." Check that out, too, and give him some love.

PR Photo Project Status

For Photo Journalism class, we were asked to work on getting our photos published.

Taking a step beyond that, I have pitched my photo essay project (entirely based around video game controllers and our interactions with them) to a contributor to The Game Reviews, a video game website. The contributer has an irregular column devoted to photos of vintage game collections, allowing gamers to contribute photos of their collections.

I linked him to my photo essay on my Flickr page, found here.

No word yet on when my essay will appear on the site, but the odds seem very good.

Photo Essay: Video Game Controllers

The goal of this photo essay was to explore control input in video games and our interaction with them on a base level. The photo collection can be found on my Flickr page here.

The photo collection and minimalistic captions representing each photo demonstrate a few key factors in how we approach video games. While some initially view the photos as hunks of plastic for child's play, the intent of the essay is to note the way we as players interact with the controllers. To approach the controllers as the "handheld medium" that separates video games from other art mediums like film is essential in understanding this unique interactive entertainment form.

Photo captions tell the real story, with the earliest dated controller described as "Direction pad, two face buttons, two mode buttons. Two thumbs to operate." In this classic Nintendo controller, players can use their simple input, often a combination of four cardinal directions and two face buttons to enjoy a large variety (literally hundreds) of games. This same controller is used to direct Mario to a power-up in Super Mario Bros., charge up a super spike with Eddie in Super Spike V'Ball, defeat Ridley as gaming's original heroine, Samus, in Metroid, and explore a vast land and down foes with magic by issuing commands in Dragon Warrior.

Additionally, this photo essay raises the question, "What about the future of game controllers?" If Nintendo's recent advancements are any question, controllers will only continue to tie in to more natural forms of human interactivity. While old technology is being used in new ways (Nintendo's Zapper and Wii Remote both utilizing infrared, twenty years apart), things like accelerometers and gyroscopes bring real human movement to many video games in a big way. Companies like Emotive are developing headsets that measure brain activity, and whispers of Microsoft planning on using human shadows hint at "controllers" on the horizon.

For the time being, of course, a few thumbs and fingers seem to draw players into their games just fine.

While intense graphics, blippy-yet-masterfully composed soundtracks, and addictive online elements pervade the minds of gamers across the globe, the input control connecting players to their games undoubtedly rules the medium. These photos and their captions highlight that fact.

Portrait Project

The purpose of the Portrait Project was to use visual cues to challenge our assumptions of our photo's subjects. In this case, we were assigned to step out of our comfort zone and photograph (in my case) one individual we did not personally know, and another that we do personally know a certain number of times.

Using common visual cues, most should be able to note the uncomfortable looks that the photo subjects give off. Whether a viewer is considering the environment of the photos, in this instance we consider a lobby and outside an elevator, or their posture, clothes, and behavior, they make a judgment on whether the photographer seems to be acquainted with them.

My Flickr page contains all the photos in the project, but the final contact sheet used is seen on the left. I arranged each picture, four for each individual, to line up more symmetrically for the viewer to compare them. In my presentation to our photo journalism class, we found that viewers of the photos were split on their judgment.

The truth of the photos here are that the man outside the elevator is my roommate, while the girl in the lobby I am not acquainted with. I instructed my roommate to have his backpack with him and look as though he was waiting for the elevator in order to go to campus. By doing so and framing the photographs in an "impromptu" manner, letting him naturally look uncomfortable (as he surely was), the two subjects looked similar. Therefore, my project demonstrates that these visual cues may be misleading when the photographer chooses to mislead, as I did.