The internet is all a-twitter with excitement over Blizzard’s recent release of the Wrath of the Lich King beta. People are bouncing between extreme anticipation and extreme disgust. Some are whining about beta keys and others can’t wait to get their hair cut. Seemingly forgetting the fact that in a couple of months (this is me making a wild estimation) the expansion pack will be readily available for everyone. But I digress.

With a shaky hand I double clicked on my beta shortcut (after the long download, of course) and the sight of the new title screen coupled with the befittingly chilling new music only served to further my tingly anticipation. I would not have said this about The Burning Crusade but this time Blizzard has done it. They have managed to re-capture all the excitement and epic qualities of World of Warcraft into an expansion that will blow both old and new players away.

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“Hey, whatchya doin’? Playing a video game again? Is that all you do in your spare time? Yeah, I know you have a job, whatever. What do you even have to do in that thing anyway? Shoot people and smash buttons? …And dodge ‘counterattacks’? Strategize—wait, you actually think about this game?”

Really, we’ve all heard it at some point. Playing video games makes us lazy. They’re nothing but simple time-killers akin to watching a sitcom or doodling in a notebook. Truth is, it’s not so easy. Unless you want it to be.

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So I’m chugging through Gears of War, gunning down Locust left and right, lighting paths in the streets to avoid being eaten alive by the Kryll. I’m having a good old time and then suddenly I pause the game. It is then, sitting at the pause menu, that I am struck with a realization.

Some of my most favorite games have little or no sense of humor.
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Okay, listen. I know that graphics aren’t the be-all and end-all of games. I know that it isn’t just about polygone count and realistic physics simulation. I agree, it’s a pain in the ass when a new game comes out and you can’t play it because your six-month old computer just can’t hack it. I do realise that stories were just as gripping, characters just as appealing (maybe even more so) back in the six-bit pixel-era. I was there. I played them. I get it.

But you know what? I fucking love graphics.

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We’ve come a long way since Snake—or have we?

Almost everyone has a cell phone, and those who do usually grow bored of their stock features. I mean, really, how many times can you play that Bejeweled demo while sitting in your dentist’s waiting room before you start yanking out your own teeth?

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So, Guy Somberg, a programmer for Flagship Studios working on Hellgate: London posted a now-removed blog entry last month about the game’s epic fail. Its failure to keep its staff, that is. He completely overlooked what a terrible conglomeration of shitty code the darn thing is.

Please, cry more about the community who assaulted your team with their ridiculous demands.

Demands for a playable game.

Completely ignore the possibility that if the game didn’t have such a surprising amount of problems, the playerbase would actually be spreading some positive word-of-mouth about it.

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