61 Frames Per Second : gamers

Facepalm: Gamer Grub Supports Your Cognitive Functions

Cole Stryker — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Man, do I feel bad for the copywriter at Biosilo Foods. I've written ad copy for the worst of them, but can you imagine writing this whopper:

Biosilo Foods is a young, progressive company that is set out to transform the food and beverage industry. With revolutionary innovation as the prime directive, Biosilo Foods is building a portfolio of new food and beverage categories.

Ugh. How soul crushing must that brand management meeting have been. So, Biosilo has a new product offering called Gamer Grub. It's a snack for h4rdc0re gamers, ergonomically designed so you don't spill Cheeto dust all over your man-boobs (Gamer Joke!). I'm grubbin' it!

Action Pizza! Racing Wasabi! Strategy Chocolate! Sports PB&J! What, no Survival Horror Strawberry? No Cool Ranch Dating Sim?

Designed for hungry gamers who want to continue playing games while consuming snacks, Gamer Grub is a great tasting, healthy line of performance snacks. With a patent-pending design to support cognitive functions, gamers will have the opportunity to think faster and win more. Gamer Grub is formulated to boost your brain and speed reaction times for maximum gaming performance.

Patent-pending design, folks. What will the brainiacs over at Biosilo come up with next? You simply must visit their website, a treasure trove of pandering ad-speak and pseudo-science. Speaking of which, be sure to check out the "Science" tab, which attempts to convince potential buyers that their snacks will somehow improve gaming performance. For example, check out the site's explanation of Vitamin A:

Visual data signals produced by the conversion of light into nerve impulses in the eye are highly dependent on Vitamin A. These nerve signals are then transmitted to your wetware’s CPU (a.k.a. brain) for translation into biological image formats.

After putting that monstrosity up on the screen, Biosilo's copywriter went home and shot his dog. True story.

Also, Vitamin E is like a firewall to protect you from free radicals, aka Spam. Kill me.

Entitled PC Gamers Whine about Rights

Cole Stryker — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Stardock's PC Gamer's Bill of Rights is a laughable and self-defeating piece of diggbait, sure to be received by mouth-breathing PC gamers with a hearty "hear hear". It's bull -- the moment you shell out cash is the moment you need to stop whining about rights. The list, with my take, after the jump:

1) Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund.

Isn't this already the case? I remember returning Deus Ex at Circuit City ten years ago for a full refund (which I used to purchase Wheel of Time, an underrated shooter based on the fantasy novels. Don't worry, I replayed Deus Ex years ago). Now I'm more aware of my machine's capabilities, but still, as long as you keep the receipt...

2) Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.

No, gamers shall have the right to not buy games which have received low reviews due to bugs, or at least until suitable patches are released. This will only expand development cycles due to extensive testing.

3) Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release.

Define meaningful. Contradicts #2.

4) Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.

This also contradicts #2. If all games are released in a finished state, who needs updates?

5) Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer.

Again, this is already the case. Also, 'adequately' is a very subjective term.

6) Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent.

This is perhaps the only legitimate point here. Nice work.

7) Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time.

Again, contradictory to #2.

8) Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.

How about, "Developers should have the right to protect their intellectual property as they see fit, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of the user?"

9) Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play.

I guess this one's OK, but I have yet to run into a game that demands this.

10) Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play.

Why not? It's an easy way to cut down on piracy, and it's a very minor hassle for the user. This is the most ludicrous addition to the list, considering that a user who takes advantage of #1 and #10 guarantees a free game in many cases.

(via Kotaku)

Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:05:00 GMT

Growing up, we all kind of hated the rich kid. Even if he was the sweetest child in the world who only wanted to share his toys and candy and have us come over and play in his hedge maze (remember that episode of Care Bears? If not, silly me, I just made up another euphemism for sex), we'd lapse into an uncomfortable, cringing silence around him, like dogs in the presence of an alpha. When he wasn't around, we'd seethe and hiss in his direction.

There are gamers in this world who are similarly intimidated by the existence of our hairy king, Mario. He benevolently brought many of us into this glorious, mind-gelling hobby. He has walked, run and jumped with us since we were children. Thanks to Mushroom Kingdom logic, we have baffled our teachers with adamant declarations about raccoons flying and fireballs bouncing underwater. Just last year, we soared through space with our magic plumber and visited more fantastic planes than the Little Prince.

Mario is grand. And that's why the latest Internet fad, in which bloggers call for his retirement, is impotent and sad.

I'm still unsure who first decided to make the ill declaration; likely someone desperate to crown himself King Controversy. This time, freelancer Patrick Goss takes the throne and gives us his reasons why Mario should give it all up and open a spaghetti farm.

The article is admittedly well-written and free from the venom that usually shoots from the mouths of message board trolls who feel qualified to look down on Shigeru Miyamoto. Still, I feel obligated to counter.

I don't feel like Mario needs to “bow out gracefully.” The Mario games are not a television series being torn apart by epic writer fights and demands for more money. We receive one, maybe two Mario games per console generation, with the NES being the obvious exception. Each title is invariably well-received and loved. In the interest of not starting a war, I'm not going to say too much about Super Mario Blacksheep--er, Sunshine.

Goss mentions Disney, which doesn't manufacture much in the way of Mickey Mouse cartoons lately and instead has moved on to other properties. He's right. Be sure to catch The Little Mermaid XXVII: Ariel's Hysterectomy, available on DVD this summer.

The thesis of Goss' article argues that Mario is in danger of being taken for granted or becoming passe. There was a time when Mario was passe; he choked desperately on Sonic the Hedgehog's wake. We all left him behind to go play with Sega's new pet. When it slowly became obvious that Sonic had rabies, Mario was waiting for us. We were sheepish, but we had learned a lesson. Oh God, did we learn a lesson.

Mario was every kid's hero when I was growing up and he remains a hero to young kids. If you think any differently, visit a game store and watch the kids pore over him and chatter about their own experiences in the same excited way we talked about Super Mario 2 and its successors. There's nothing to be gained from taking that away from them.

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