Finding Time To Game

I posted this a while ago in a forum thread on x360a about how people with large gamerscores find time to play so many games. I was feeling a little cheeky at the time, so I penned a short satirical guide, poking a little fun at the achievement community. It got a really good response with a lot of laughs from other members, so I decided to re-post it here on my blog for kicks. Hope you enjoy it.


Official Guide for Finding Time To Game

First off, dump your girlfriend! She wastes at least 3 hours a week bitching about how much time you spend gaming. If you don't want to lose the girlfriend, then give her that baby she keeps dropping hints about - that'll keep her too busy to waste time bitching at you about playing games! When you're playing your xbox at 3am and the baby starts crying, go stick a bottle in its mouth - that will win you bonus points with the misses, and possibly even add value to your gaming habit in her eyes! Resist the urge to snuff the baby out with a pillow over the face, as this will require you to make another one and waste more time and resources in the end! If you're in the middle of a multiplayer match and the little bastard starts crying, it is perfectly acceptable to wait until the match is over to tend to its needs – it's just hungry, and babies are too fat anyway! One possible downside to this is that the wife might wake up and feed the baby, in which case you will have to listen to her bitch for at least fifteen minutes before you can get back to your game. If this happens, one workaround is to leave the tv on really loud to drown out the babies cries.

Now that you have the situation at home under control, you need to get a handle on work. Working hard early in your career pays off in the long run, because once you get promoted to department head/middle management it's all about delegating responsibility, and delegating responsibility means more nap time for you! This is crucial, as the ideal gaming hours from 11pm - 5am can be wasted on sleep if you don't get enough nap time at work! Skipping lunch also affords you another hour for napping, and every cheeseburger you skip means less time at the gym and more time sitting on that couch getting achievements! It's win/win! If you can't seem to make it to middle management or simply don't want to put forth the effort, disability and/or social welfare programs are also popular means to your gaming ends. Some people think social welfare programs will limit the amount of disposable income available for Gamefly/Gamestop, but there are other ways to tighten your budget without sacrificing gaming goodness... Sell that condo in the city for a trailer in the park! Not only will this cut your housing expenses, but it is perfectly acceptable to forgo diapers and shoes for the baby in this social environment! Also, with an easily accessible and copious availability of Captain's Wafers and Slim Jims, you can really cut down on the baby food bill!

Pro Tips: Coffee is your friend, but avoid it at work as it may keep you awake during the daytime. Both whiskey and weed can enhance your gaming experience, but never at the same time. The synergistic effect of these two can make you fall asleep with the controller in your hand. Whiskey and cocaine on the other hand is the cocktail of rock stars - the professional all night party people, but this can be prohibitively expensive to all but the most wealthy trust fund babies and entertainment executives. Sexual activities (with or without partner) should be limited to after gaming or before work (and lunchtime if you have a cute assistant) as this can also cause you to fall asleep with your, ahem, controller in your hand...

This system is by no means set in stone! It is merely a loose outline for success, and you should feel free to make adjustments to suit your specific requirements! I hope this helps, and happy achievement hunting!

Waggle the Dog

What I've seen from E3 this year is Microsoft putting all their marbles into Kinect, Sony pushing Move and Nintendo going back to the controller? Wait, what? Microsoft and Sony playing catch-up with Nintendo? And Nintendo, trying to scoop up all the core gamers while Microsoft and Sony blunder with motion sensors and alienate the core gamer? It makes me wonder if this wasn't Nintendo's plan from the start, with the wii little more than a clever diversion to confuse everyone while they rob the the cradle at midnight as Microsoft and Sony sleep, with visions of motion sensors dancing in their heads. Could this be a case of the tail “waggling” the dog?

There's no doubt about it, the wii has been a smashing success and casual gamers worldwide flocked to it and its waggle controls. It is the top selling console worldwide, and it's not even HD. It has only flash memory and no real online... In fact, it's really just a Gamecube with a gimmicky controller that, frankly, doesn't even work very well! Nevertheless, it's sold extremely well, and Nintendo has made boatloads of money from it. So, why is Nintendo going in a different direction with the next generation console? If it ain't broke then don't fix it, right? But it is broken. It's so broken that you're more likely to find one holding a door open than hooked up to a TV... Sure, plug it in and it still plays games, but it's still broken, nonetheless. Sales have declined, the novelty has worn off, and millions of the white plastic boxes sit, collecting dust. Perhaps this is because it was only ever a clever diversion meant to fill the gap until they released their true next gen console, the wii u! And, like I said, it was a smashing success!

Meanwhile, let's look at what Microsoft offered up this year. Well, there is Kinect again. Then there's Kinect, and of course we can't overlook Kinect! Such a broad range of offering compared to last year's E3, when they introduced... Kinect! Wasn't Fable 3 supposed to have some truly amazing Kinect enabled features? It didn't... Seriously, Microsoft? Is this what the best and brightest brains from Berkley and Stanford came up with? The technology is impressive, sure! Everybody goes “oooh!” I mean, did you see the way Kinect captures your face and clothes and turns them into an avatar? Except, well, you can't actually use it as... an avatar... Believe me when I say that the core gamer is chewing through his own leg right now trying to escape your grasp. Kinect is, in fact, coyote ugly! Can't you see that through your bureaucracy? Who the hell is running that place now anyway? Stevie Wonder? How can the best and the brightest America has to offer be so dumb? We used to make heart lung machines... Now, we make Kinect? Let me make this clear, the core gamer will not go hands free until the cable from his xbox plugs directly into his brain. Work on that one...

And Sony is no better... If they're not finding ways to give away our credit card information, then they're too preoccupied with what Microsoft is doing to see the forest for the trees. Let me make this simple, Microsoft is trying to copy Nintendo, and you're trying to copy Microsoft, Sony... See what happened there? Where's Nintendo? They're getting ready to steal all your customers with the cutesy named fire-breathing dragon, the wii u. Will you be caught with your pants down when it burns down your house and steals your children? Well, it doesn't look good. What's your development cycle? 2015, right; that's the estimated date of your new console? Yeah, you might wanna rethink that strategy...

So, the company behind the simple little doorstop with waggle control aren't exactly simpletons, are they. They know gimmicks, and they understand consumers. We're gamers, but we have jobs, we exercise, we spend more time in the sun than you think. When we get home and want to play a game, we don't want to move our coffee tables, because that's where we like to put our feet... when we SIT on our sofas... and PLAY GAMES!!! If Microsoft and Sony insist on ramming motion sensors down our throats, then next Christmas we'll all be getting plenty of exercise doing the Kirby dance on our new Nintendos.

<(^.^<)<(^.^)>(>^.^)> ...all your customers are belong to us.