Friday afternoon tidbits

Because a links post is easier than generating new content...

-If you haven't been keeping up with Gamer Melodico, a new site led by Kirk Hamilton, one of the nicest guys on the internet, you should. This week he posted a hilarious video of Commander Shepard's anti-press tendencies. Hasn't this guy ever heard of the first amendment?

(The temptation to play Mass Effect grows ever stronger. I must resist.)

-Mike Walbridge has some advice for aspiring game writers: give up. Mike's not wrong on most of his points. It's hard enough to make any money writing about video games, never mind make a living off of it. The competition is fierce. It's a constant battle to get paid what you're worth when there are thousands of other people out there willing to work for less. And yes, writing about games changes the way you play them, which is not always for the best. It's all true.

But it's also true that if you love writing, and you love games, and you feel like you have something to say, you should say it. Maybe nobody wants to pay you, or publish you. Say it anyway. Start a blog. Write for the love of writing. It's not always easy, and sometimes the well of ideas is dry. That's okay. Do it anyway. Write when you can. Play when you can. Do it for the love of the game, and some kind of success will follow.

Just maybe get a day job, too.

-Gus Mastrapa wonders if he's too old to compete with the youngsters in online shooters. This is a great piece, ringing with truth. When I was a teenager, I put hundreds, if not thousands of hours, into Quake II Capture the Flag. It's the only game I've ever really been good at, and it's only because of the practice. That was a luxury I had back then. I don't have that luxury now. At the age of 28, I've accepted that I will never really be good at a game again. That's fine in single player games, in which you don't have to excel in order to complete them. But it does make multiplayer tricky.

It's fitting that Gus quotes Valve's Chet Faliszek, who worked on Left 4 Dead, because I've found that as I get older, my interest in cooperative experiences like L4D only grows. It's not multiplayer that I'm tired of, which is what I thought for awhile, but the grueling competition you find in the average deathmatch. What's the point? I'm old and slow, and I'm comfortable with that.

-Lately I've been playing more and more online games at sites like Kongregate, and feeling like there's a whole world I didn't know existed. For some reason I just assumed these were spammy, worthless aggregators, but it's not the case. There's some great stuff out there, most of which can be consumed in bite-sized chunks. This week's recommendation: I Remain, a point-and-click adventure set in a zombie apocalypse. It's pretty creepy.

-I hate Google Buzz. Do you hate Google Buzz?