Harpooned!

I’ve been listening to a fair amount of Midnight Oil lately and it got me thinking; do games comment on society in the same way popular culture like music does? I’m not talking about political sims like Political Machine, but games with a deeper, politcally driven message.

After a bit of digging and some help from my friends over at the PcPowerPlay forums I was alerted to Harpooned, a ‘Japanese Cetacean Research Simulator.’ I really don’t think its possible to miss the message in this one. You take on the role of  a Japanese ‘research’ boat, conducting said research by killing as many whales as possible.

Choice quotes include “Perform research by shooting whales with your explosive harpoons!” and “Additional Discovery: The whales seem to be afraid of our ships. We must kill more whales to discover why they fear us.”

While this games message is a sad reality, I think it’s a good thing that developers feel they can create something which is obviously politically driven. While we are yet to see any big name developers take the same route as the people behind Harpooned, elements of social commentary are still present within their games.

Over the next few days I’ll be pursuing this further..

On that note…

 

Speaking of competitive gaming, my TF2 team has a match tommorow night!

DONT RUN OUT OF STEAM BOYS

Looking forward to this one. After a few rough weeks and losing a few core members we are finding some stability again. Much props must go to the boys for keeping at it and staying positive even when  we couldn’t field a full team.

Big welcome to Opti and my good mate Predict. 

If your keen on getting into competitive TF2, Ozfortress is definitely the hub for the competitive community. Linkies on the side of the page.

Competitive Gaming

Traditionally the terms ‘athletes’ and ‘computer games’ sat on opposite ends of the spectrum. The sweaty, muscular titans of society sitting on one end, being cheered and adored by fans worldwide; while the typically pasty, overweight, or socially inept computer geeks sat [by themselves] at the other.

While this is probably still the most likely case, gamers much like myself are embracing the competitive side of video games.

Esports as they are called, are much like their real life counterparts. Competitions are held, prizes are offered and even corporate sponsorship is offered to the elite few. I’m not going to lie, video games are probably never going to get you the fame of people like Tiger Woods. Your also probably never going to be drooled over by males worldwide like Maria Sharapova. But nevertheless, esports give gamers worldwide a chance to prove their worth against their peers.

Sure. There are definitely critics.

‘Sitting on your arse pressing buttons isn’t sport,’ they say.

‘You have the physique of a pasty sloth,’ they might add.

But competitive gaming can, and should be classified as sport. Look, I’m not going to argue that gaming will ever make you hurt like the hardest 100 meter sprint of your life. I’m not going to liken it to lifting triple your body weight over your head. But hey. Competitive gaming does take skill, it does require teamwork, and it definitely requires practise.

I’m not going to be sweating like a marathon runner but hey, neither is a snooker player.

clean slate.

Yep I’m pretty nerdy.

I’m 20 years old.

I play computer games alot.

I think about them a lot.

And now I will  write about them a lot.

My seriously un-nerdy friends don’t share the passion. I’m also fairly sure my lecturers (yes I’m looking at you man in the skirt) don’t share the passion.

I need an outlet.

So here it is.