Do you care about keeping up with other gamers?

Look, I get how big online gaming is. I'm not an online gamer myself, and I'll tell you why. To me gaming is an escape from having to deal with real people. I do that every day. They drive me nuts. I don't want to do it in a game. I want to deal with pre-programmed NPC's that behave, well, logically.
So that means I don't care much about what my gamer friends are up to in a given minute. Sure, I want to know what they're playing, what they think about it, etc., but I don't have to know what achievements or trophies they've won today.
But a lot of people do. If you do, there's an app for that. It's called Raptr and you can learn about it here. And that's great and all, just don't expect me to be on it.

MYST, the movie?

Long time pc gamers will remember MYST, one of the original point and click adventure games with fairly good graphics and voice acting. If you've never played it, you can learn all about it at Mystworlds. Basically you're you, stuck in the world of Myst and trying to figure out what's going on by collecting pages to one of two books you find that have two brothers trapped in them. One of them is obviously nuts, and the other one, not so obviously, but clearly something's afoot. To find the pages you have to solve a series of interesting puzzles you find by travelling to different "ages", the different levels of the game. Aside from the two brothers trapped in their books, you don't see a soul. And yet someone thinks they can make this into a movie.
To be fair, the two independent filmmakers who are working on this say they're making a movie based on a novel based on the game, which they say has a deep rich narrative. I haven't read it, so I can't say.
I wish them luck. It was a good game and if they can pull it off it'll be beautiful on screen. What I find unfortunate is that a lot of society, maybe most of it, only thinks a story is valid if it's a book or a movie. Why can't a story be interactive? In a game you, as the player, write part of the story. A lot of it, in some games. How is this not as legitimate an art form as anything else we watch, read or listen to?
Think of your favorite games. Recently we've had some good ones. Red Dead Redemption is the best western since Unforgiven. Any Resident Evil game beats the pants off of any RE movie. And anyone who's played the game and seen the prequels knows that Knights of the Old Republic is a better Star Wars movie than anything put on film since Return of the Jedi.
So what do you think? As someone who is a long time gamer, have games finally gotten the respect they deserve? Or are they still having to wait for someone in Hollywood to validate them? Leave your comments.

Minecraft, the latest way to waste time on your pc. And it's really cool.

Minecraft is a kind of a throwback to the 8 bit first person adventure genre that was so prominent during PC gaming's early days. In Minecraft you're stranded on an island and have to construct everything you need. There's a story, sort of, but it's really about building things with blocks that look like they should be in Mario land. You can build most anything, including the starship Enterprise.
If graphics are your thing, this isn't for you. It's straight up fun gameplay, a huge open ended sandbox where you can basically do what you want. If what you want to do is dig, craft and build. Check it out at www.minecraft.net.

Great deal on a new Xbox 4GB slim

I love my 250GB slim Elite. But I will admit, I could probably get by just about as well with just the 4GB "arcade" version. If you could too, here's your chance. Dell Home has a great deal on the new console on the block, $179.99 with free shipping. So if your old 360 RRODed or you're a PS3 gamer who wants to expand on the cheap, here's your chance. Check it out here.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West trailer looks awesome, demo out on Live

I know this came out a while ago, for E3, but part of what we do here at Gen X Gamers is catch you up with things you might have missed because you have a life outside of gaming. And since the demo for this game came out on PSN this week and Xbox live today, I thought you might want to check it out.
The gameplay looks fun, the environment is beautifully rendered, voice acting sounds great, and the whole thing could have been a movie. Almost was. Sorta. The game comes out on October 5th.

Easter eggs: love 'em or just meh? Halo:Reach warthog race

There's a little known (for now anyway) Easter egg in Halo:Reach that enables you to have a warthog race. (If you want to know how, click here). Which brings up the question, what do you think of Easter eggs?

Games are full of them. You can get Master Chief armor and a plasma sword in Fable 2, teddy bears in Modern Warfare 2, Yoshi's cameo at the end of Super Mario 64, and of course you can chase all over Grand Theft Auto games to find actual eggs. So that brings up the question, do you like eegs?

I think a good little in joke occasionally is ok, one of the fun little things about gaming that makes it possible, in  a good game, to have more depth than you can get in say a movie. Anything more than that, to me, just runs the risk of taking me out of the game experience. I've worked hard emotionally to get involved in most of the games I play, and I want to be as immersed in that world as possible. So exploring a cave in Morrowind and running across the corpse of a character named Peke Utchoo (it's there) doesn't add to the game for me. 

But I might be the exception. What do you think about Easter eggs, good or bad? And what are your favorites?

Heavy Rain at amazon for $39.99

Check out amazon.com for a deal on Heavy Rain, the noir mystery game for PS3. If you have a PS3 you already know there aren't a lot of good exclusives, although some of them
are very good. This is one of those. If you like thriller, mystery or CSI type movies you'll enjoy this game. And if anyone finds it cheaper elsewhere, let us know.

Dear Kinect: what if I don't wanna get up?

Everybody has heard of Microsoft's new toy, but on the off chance that you've been, oh I don't know, working, let's recap. Kinect is essentially a camera that can read your body movement and translate that into the movement of characters through your Xbox 360. Unlike the Wii controller you can't keep seated at all with Kinect, your entire body is part of the action. There are only a few games now that actually use it; Dance Central, Kinect Sports, Zumba and a few others. More are coming, including one, Child of Eden, that actually sounds interesting. But that's not my point.
To me, video gaming is a mental experience more than a physical one. I like games with stories, character development, plot, etc. Yeah I'm partial to RPG's, but heck even Madden has some of that. What I don't want is an exercise program in my living room. For that I have a gym membership, and yes I even go. Gaming is relaxation, recreation, a way to get my mind on something other than work, bills, etc. And I prefer to do it seated.
So is Kinect gaming's future? Sadly, it probably is. As successful as Nintendo has been with the Wii in expanding their market beyond (really far beyond, perhaps to the near exclusion of) the traditional gamer, it's inevitable that Microsoft and Sony (with their Move) would want a piece of the pie. And if it makes the pie more palatable to the general public, then I say that's OK. I just don't want them to forget about the guy at the end of the couch.

Are all the good game ideas taken?

There's going to be a new Devil May Cry coming soon. A reboot, from the looks of it.  Halo Reach just came out, the 3rd-and-a-half-kinda in the series. A new Metroid just hit recently, continuing a series that started on the NES. I don't even think I can count how many Mario games there have been and a new Donkey Kong is on its way. We aren't even going to Final Fantasy. There are a lot of sequels in gaming.
We all love the classic franchises. I love a good sequel as much as anybody, which all the hours I have into Mass Effect 2 will testify to. But at some point we have to wonder, where are the new ideas?
There are some good new games out there to be sure. Little Big Planet is delightful, clever and inventive. Dragon Age Origins has some great storytelling. So naturally there are already two big expansions and a sequel on the way. Uncharted is good stuff, fun and engaging. And of course it too has a sequel. Alan Wake is my kind of game, deep and thoughtful. But if you look at the game charts for the last year or so almost everything is a sequel of some sort. (Yes Red Dead Redemption is a sequel).
So what's going on? I want to talk to the more seasoned gamer, the ones who remember these franchises when they were 8 bit sprites struggling with bad animation. Is there too much sequelizing (is that a word?) in gaming? Is Bungie doing the right thing walking away from Halo while it's hot? Or are we ok with going along this same path, making every game like Tomb Raider, sequel after sequel, risking the watering down of what makes a game great?  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Gamers of a certain age...

Welcome to Gen X Gamers. If this is your first time, well, that's ok 'cause it's my first time too.
I wanted to introduce myself and talk about why I started this blog and what I hope to accomplish. A mission statement, if you will.
Mission statement. Sounds like something a company would have. Why didn't I say "quest objective" or something like that? Because I work for a large company and don't game all the time. If that's you, you probably get it, and if you get it you're who I want to talk to.
At GenX Gamers I want to talk to gamers in their 30's and 40's, who grew up with gaming, but have lives, jobs, maybe kids, definitely responsibilities. Who maybe have just a few hours a week to play. And don't want to waste them. Who want to play games with some depth and substance, and occasionally just shoot something. Who maybe aren't in a position to drop $60 on whatever looks good this week and probably aren't going to buy the special edition in the fancy case. Real gamers, living real lives.
We'll talk about everything, whether it's a new game on your smartphone or a classic you plunked quarters into back in the day. We'll review new games, sure, but I also want to address the needs of families on a budget who might be in the "greatest hits" category, those for whom buying a new console may be a major investment. (It should be, you're going to spend quality time with it).
So let's get started. Choose your difficulty level, your weapons loadout, your character class, or just push "start", and lets-a go!