Comments on: Roger Ebert’s Take on Video Games http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=roger-eberts-take-on-video-games telling you what to think since aught-five. Wed, 02 May 2012 10:39:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Empty Bookshelf Reviews » 13 Months of Empty Bookshelf Reviews http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-1032 Empty Bookshelf Reviews » 13 Months of Empty Bookshelf Reviews Fri, 01 Dec 2006 04:15:53 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-1032 [...] I like that I have means of embedding hidden messages using abbreviations, a variety of encryption methods (ROT13 for the win!), acronyms, anagrams, good old-fashioned digital steganography, seemingly random pop-in text, and more in the middle of perfectly unassuming articles. Of my reviews, I think the "When Your Reach Exceeds Your Grasp" is probably the strongest: it doesn't meander, it includes that self-deprecating humor found in all of the emptybookshelf reviews that the ladies claim to love. Of course, here we (I) are (am) writing about how great we are, but still... Anyway, I'd stand behind Verbally Harassing Horses, Oakley Twitch, Outsourcing Phone Support to India, The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output, the 3 part Current TV Landscape (meandering as the reviews do), and the Roger Ebert's Take on Video Games. I've enjoyed how I very infrequently actually follow-up on things I claim I will review in the future: my Pirates Magazine series ended up being just one review, and as you read that review, you can sense my feeling of having any point in reviewing further aspects of it go out the window. I've never reviewed the Daily Show, and heck, of the original topics I listed in the first review, well, let's take a look. [...] [...] I like that I have means of embedding hidden messages using abbreviations, a variety of encryption methods (ROT13 for the win!), acronyms, anagrams, good old-fashioned digital steganography, seemingly random pop-in text, and more in the middle of perfectly unassuming articles. Of my reviews, I think the “When Your Reach Exceeds Your Grasp” is probably the strongest: it doesn’t meander, it includes that self-deprecating humor found in all of the emptybookshelf reviews that the ladies claim to love. Of course, here we (I) are (am) writing about how great we are, but still… Anyway, I’d stand behind Verbally Harassing Horses, Oakley Twitch, Outsourcing Phone Support to India, The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output, the 3 part Current TV Landscape (meandering as the reviews do), and the Roger Ebert’s Take on Video Games. I’ve enjoyed how I very infrequently actually follow-up on things I claim I will review in the future: my Pirates Magazine series ended up being just one review, and as you read that review, you can sense my feeling of having any point in reviewing further aspects of it go out the window. I’ve never reviewed the Daily Show, and heck, of the original topics I listed in the first review, well, let’s take a look. [...]

]]> By: Empty Bookshelf Reviews » Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media Or The Critical Reception to Jackass: Number Two http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-342 Empty Bookshelf Reviews » Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media Or The Critical Reception to Jackass: Number Two Tue, 26 Sep 2006 02:56:35 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-342 [...] September 25th, 2006 Dan It's well known that aside from some misinformed old-cootedness about video games, we hold Roger Ebert in pretty high esteem around these parts. His cancer-surgery-turned-surgical-complications has taken him out of the reviewing game since mid-summer, and though no annoucements have been made, I'm guessing he won't be back until "Oscar season" starts in mid-November. Regardless, I've taken issue with very few of his reviews, though his "thing" for Angelina Jolie's lips awarded both of the Tomb Raider movies three undeserved stars, even looking at those movies in the "brainless action" genre. That tick of his aside (a soft spot for threatening-looking women), the only other time I've not taken his side was when he decided the original Jackass wasn't worth reviewing. Unfortunately, I can't find the actual article that includes the quote that I think I remember, but it went something like this (notice the single-quotes - journalistic integrity is listed as a category for this review) 'I am a movie critic. I review movies. As funny as Jackass is, it's not a movie.' In short(er), just being a collection of skits, none of which tells any sort of traditional story, it's more accurately a "video" as opposed to a movie. I couldn't find that quote, but I could find him answering a reader's question about why he didn't review it. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Ebert said, "If I laugh, I have to tell you it's funny. I went to see 'Jackass,' a shameful movie. I laughed all the way through it. I mean, I have to tell you that." At the end of day, instead of giving Jackass a positive review (what with it being a successful movie, one where the audience is entertained) and being on the record as having condoned something like that, he chose to not review it at all. I don't get it. Now, speaking as a principled person myself, I perfectly recognize the need to occasionally throw all principles out the window if there are extenuating circumstances. Ebert simply didn't want to be someone associated with a movie like Jackass. Luckily, his on-screen partner in reviewing all things cinematical, Richard Roeper gave probably the best critical quote about it: "Jackass: The Movie is a disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle, but it's also hilarious and provocative. God help me, thumbs up." Hallelujah. That's even more positive than my review would've been. (for the record, having seen both of the movies, I'd say that I could do without the poop and the pain for the sake of pain stunts) I'm not one to find profundity for the sake of profundity, but my stance on the movies is this: they're not profound, but there's something to be said about the sociological aspects of what a bunch of suburban-ish white guys found to entertain themselves and the business acumen it took to make what they were doing marketable outside of the skater community. The issue I do take with Ebert's (lack of a) stance is that his book of "The Great Movies" (quotes because that's the actual title of the book) includes the 1929 short film, Un Chien Andalou, notable for its lack of coherent structure and (moreso) co-creation by one Salvador Dalí. I won't compare work by Salvador Dalí to the content of Jackass, nor will I insinuate that Jackass somehow deserves to among "the great movies," but I will say that for someone who is very quick to condemn the supposedly increasing closed-mindedness of the American movie going public, not giving a movie you liked the critical time of day because it was "different" isn't the strongest philosophical ground to be standing upon. (I know, it's sort of lazy of me to not include links to examples of "very quick to condemn..." but, in short, look up any of his Adam Sandler reviews other than Punch Drunk Love.) The loose thread between the "Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media..." and the movie itself is the fact that in the AP review, the writer actually invokes a comparison between Jackass: Number 2 a scene from Un Chien Andalou. There's not much more to it than the fact that I said the same thing in 2002. And, I was reasonable enough to give the comparison with a bunch of qualifiers instead of trying for some sort of faux-intellectual comment. Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media Or The Critical Reception to Jackass: Number Two receives four-and-a-half stars due to my thinkin' brain and its whooping of the critics by four good years. In actuality, the whole mess with Ebert's take on the first movie is sort of unrelated to this, but it does serve as backstory as to why I had done any thinking on the subject. If you're thinking about seeing the movie, it's as simple as this: if you think you'll like it, you will. If you think you won't like it, you won't. If you're not sure if you'll like it, you'll like it. Late-breaking, sort of related reviewing: Jim Emerson, the sort of backup on rogerebert.com has his own blog (aside from the corner he gets on the Ebert webpage). On his blog, he has a cute little entry entitled, "Aint-It-Cool-Times" (his emphasis) bemoaning the Los Angeles Times for including a script review section on their website. He's so put off by it that he says the newspaper has "jumped the shark" (and I thought Emerson was a movie critic! buh-ZING!), becoming yet another head of the hydra that is the modern movie industry (my metaphor, thank you very much). There's a bunch of resentment of the "traditional" journalists (print, TV, radio) towards the "new" "journalists" on the internet. Sure, any schmuck can run a website and spout off whatever nonsense he wants and claim to be a journalist (note: Nate and I don't claim to be journalists. Adam? Maybe.) What with journalism degrees being real degrees, the "old guard" doesn't like the instant credibility that the internet offers. Aintitcoolnews, the target of his sort-of pun of a title is one of the more successful "home made" websites, and in fact, in the years it's existed, it's sort of a "real" site, though it does seemingly serve as a mouthpiece for the studios marketing departments sometimes. He goes on: "No. It's not. Fernandez [the writer of the script review section of the Los Angeles Times] isn't a journalist and he isn't a critic; he's a leech, on the level of those self-aggrandizing amateur web trolls who think their premature, uninformed opinions about an unfinished work are 'news.'" Amateur web trolls? eh. Premature, uninformed opinions? meh. Self-aggrandizing? MR. EMERSON, YOU HAD ME AT 'HELLO!' We here at the Bookshelf® ... wait, hold on, I like seeing that with the registered mark after it.... wait....yeah. We think you're wrong and are probably just bitter that you had zero web recognizability until you became Roger Ebert's second-in-command. Consider yourself called out by the Bookshelf® (you join such luminaries as the New York Times, Humanity, that horse, and Pitchfork Media. [...] [...] September 25th, 2006 Dan It’s well known that aside from some misinformed old-cootedness about video games, we hold Roger Ebert in pretty high esteem around these parts. His cancer-surgery-turned-surgical-complications has taken him out of the reviewing game since mid-summer, and though no annoucements have been made, I’m guessing he won’t be back until “Oscar season” starts in mid-November. Regardless, I’ve taken issue with very few of his reviews, though his “thing” for Angelina Jolie’s lips awarded both of the Tomb Raider movies three undeserved stars, even looking at those movies in the “brainless action” genre. That tick of his aside (a soft spot for threatening-looking women), the only other time I’ve not taken his side was when he decided the original Jackass wasn’t worth reviewing. Unfortunately, I can’t find the actual article that includes the quote that I think I remember, but it went something like this (notice the single-quotes – journalistic integrity is listed as a category for this review) ‘I am a movie critic. I review movies. As funny as Jackass is, it’s not a movie.’ In short(er), just being a collection of skits, none of which tells any sort of traditional story, it’s more accurately a “video” as opposed to a movie. I couldn’t find that quote, but I could find him answering a reader’s question about why he didn’t review it. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Ebert said, “If I laugh, I have to tell you it’s funny. I went to see ‘Jackass,’ a shameful movie. I laughed all the way through it. I mean, I have to tell you that.” At the end of day, instead of giving Jackass a positive review (what with it being a successful movie, one where the audience is entertained) and being on the record as having condoned something like that, he chose to not review it at all. I don’t get it. Now, speaking as a principled person myself, I perfectly recognize the need to occasionally throw all principles out the window if there are extenuating circumstances. Ebert simply didn’t want to be someone associated with a movie like Jackass. Luckily, his on-screen partner in reviewing all things cinematical, Richard Roeper gave probably the best critical quote about it: “Jackass: The Movie is a disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle, but it’s also hilarious and provocative. God help me, thumbs up.” Hallelujah. That’s even more positive than my review would’ve been. (for the record, having seen both of the movies, I’d say that I could do without the poop and the pain for the sake of pain stunts) I’m not one to find profundity for the sake of profundity, but my stance on the movies is this: they’re not profound, but there’s something to be said about the sociological aspects of what a bunch of suburban-ish white guys found to entertain themselves and the business acumen it took to make what they were doing marketable outside of the skater community. The issue I do take with Ebert’s (lack of a) stance is that his book of “The Great Movies” (quotes because that’s the actual title of the book) includes the 1929 short film, Un Chien Andalou, notable for its lack of coherent structure and (moreso) co-creation by one Salvador Dalí. I won’t compare work by Salvador Dalí to the content of Jackass, nor will I insinuate that Jackass somehow deserves to among “the great movies,” but I will say that for someone who is very quick to condemn the supposedly increasing closed-mindedness of the American movie going public, not giving a movie you liked the critical time of day because it was “different” isn’t the strongest philosophical ground to be standing upon. (I know, it’s sort of lazy of me to not include links to examples of “very quick to condemn…” but, in short, look up any of his Adam Sandler reviews other than Punch Drunk Love.) The loose thread between the “Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media…” and the movie itself is the fact that in the AP review, the writer actually invokes a comparison between Jackass: Number 2 a scene from Un Chien Andalou. There’s not much more to it than the fact that I said the same thing in 2002. And, I was reasonable enough to give the comparison with a bunch of qualifiers instead of trying for some sort of faux-intellectual comment. Once Again Being One Up on the Mass Media Or The Critical Reception to Jackass: Number Two receives four-and-a-half stars due to my thinkin’ brain and its whooping of the critics by four good years. In actuality, the whole mess with Ebert’s take on the first movie is sort of unrelated to this, but it does serve as backstory as to why I had done any thinking on the subject. If you’re thinking about seeing the movie, it’s as simple as this: if you think you’ll like it, you will. If you think you won’t like it, you won’t. If you’re not sure if you’ll like it, you’ll like it. Late-breaking, sort of related reviewing: Jim Emerson, the sort of backup on rogerebert.com has his own blog (aside from the corner he gets on the Ebert webpage). On his blog, he has a cute little entry entitled, “Aint-It-Cool-Times” (his emphasis) bemoaning the Los Angeles Times for including a script review section on their website. He’s so put off by it that he says the newspaper has “jumped the shark” (and I thought Emerson was a movie critic! buh-ZING!), becoming yet another head of the hydra that is the modern movie industry (my metaphor, thank you very much). There’s a bunch of resentment of the “traditional” journalists (print, TV, radio) towards the “new” “journalists” on the internet. Sure, any schmuck can run a website and spout off whatever nonsense he wants and claim to be a journalist (note: Nate and I don’t claim to be journalists. Adam? Maybe.) What with journalism degrees being real degrees, the “old guard” doesn’t like the instant credibility that the internet offers. Aintitcoolnews, the target of his sort-of pun of a title is one of the more successful “home made” websites, and in fact, in the years it’s existed, it’s sort of a “real” site, though it does seemingly serve as a mouthpiece for the studios marketing departments sometimes. He goes on: “No. It’s not. Fernandez [the writer of the script review section of the Los Angeles Times] isn’t a journalist and he isn’t a critic; he’s a leech, on the level of those self-aggrandizing amateur web trolls who think their premature, uninformed opinions about an unfinished work are ‘news.’” Amateur web trolls? eh. Premature, uninformed opinions? meh. Self-aggrandizing? MR. EMERSON, YOU HAD ME AT ‘HELLO!’ We here at the Bookshelf® … wait, hold on, I like seeing that with the registered mark after it…. wait….yeah. We think you’re wrong and are probably just bitter that you had zero web recognizability until you became Roger Ebert’s second-in-command. Consider yourself called out by the Bookshelf® (you join such luminaries as the New York Times, Humanity, that horse, and Pitchfork Media. [...]

]]> By: Dan http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-267 Dan Wed, 09 Aug 2006 01:04:59 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-267 Once again, I have beaten someone to it... here's someone wondering why there are no high brow video games... http://gamasutra.com/features/20060807/adams_01.shtml Once again, I have beaten someone to it… here’s someone wondering why there are no high brow video games… http://gamasutra.com/features/20060807/adams_01.shtml

]]> By: Empty Bookshelf Reviews » The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-201 Empty Bookshelf Reviews » The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:19:43 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-201 [...] Video Games? - HA! [...] [...] Video Games? – HA! [...]

]]> By: Empty Bookshelf Reviews » “The Internet” http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-97 Empty Bookshelf Reviews » “The Internet” Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:17:45 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-97 [...] January 16th, 2006 Dan hmm, I didn't have a solid plan when I started this review. I simultaneously wanted to do a running list of "'the internet' thinks this, 'the internet' thinks that" and a traditional intro, body, rating, conclusion review. Unfortunately I had neither enough entries for that running list or a fully fleshed out concept for the traditional review, so we get a questionably coherent mishmash of both. hmm #2...I scrapped the list I had when I realized how long the traditional part was. The list wasn't very good anyway. Anyway, enough meta. Notice those quotes up there? The ones around The Internet? Those signify that we're not talking about the actual internet. Nope, we're not discussing millions of computers, countless low-level hardware thingies that are probably made by Cisco, nor little understood software and protocols that link all of it together. In fact, we're not even talking about the 750ish million people that use the internet. We're talking about those people, the one's that both provide and fuel almost every stereotype about the modern "geek." The most famous parody/stereotype of "the internet." It's funny because it's true. "The Internet" is almost a collective consciousness; the phrase "all your base are belong to us" means less than nothing to those not part of "the internet." But those in that club thinks (or at least thought at one point in time) that it is hilarious. "The Internet" loves being first to know about something that's become "pop-culture," and isn't afraid to hold that against you. In fact, here's a disturbingly complete list of pieces of internet culture. Some of them never caught on with the general public, but some will look quite familiar. The anonymous nature of participation on the internet (no quotes) allows for those who care too much about something that is inconsequential to spend time (hours, days....years?) and defend their work because there's someone else on "The Internet" that probably is working on something just like it. These two people will hate each other and will develop fanboys, the offical animal of "The Internet." Because the internet is so unfathomably large, there's stuff about everything. Without going into history, the type of people who were first using the civilian internet, were (standby as I stereotype and generalize)...well, let's call them the type of people who had the technical background or interest to have the means and abilities to connect to the internet. Stereotypically (and accurately), these aren't the people to have "mainstream" interests. I'm not necessarily judging what those interests might be, but needless to say, the population at large doesn't share those interests. Being that college campuses were some of the first places people could experience what would become "the internet," students with the interest and ability to participate in the internet made some of the first "home pages," sites dedicated to whatever their left of mainstream interest happened to be. Combine that with the fact that much of the internet traffic was coming from other college campuses, a huge social network of young people who normally weren't part of a huge social network developed. Before "the internet," college campuses also served as larger-scale examples of the comic book store phenomenon, with numerous people with non-mainstream interests meeting enough people with those same interests to create a community where discussions could take place about those interests beyond the "Comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, and etc. suck and so do you" stereotypically presented by the "mainstream." Members of "the internet" would indignantly mention that I skipped the discussion of BBSes, IRC, usenet, and other things that our readership wouldn't care about. Oddly enough, "The Internet" doesn't really have much to say about music. Sure, there are fansites, but if one were to list influential music websites that are just websites, pitchforkmedia.com will probably be the only he can think of. I'd guess that this is because the world of music is simply too huge and diverse; genres are so monolithic that there can't be a general-purpose site serving all of it. Oddly enough, considering how similar members of "the internet" are, they have no central meeting point. That doesn't mean there aren't sites "they" frequent. Fark, sort of a weird news aggregator, serves as the general news-gathering device. To be fair to Fark, I know of no one, member of "the internet" or not, who didn't get a kick out of it, at least during their first visit. If they want more scathing humor that specializes in topics of which "the internet" is conscious, there's Something Awful. Both Something Awful and Fark have Photoshop contests; naturally the two subcommunities hate each other. Usually the Something Awful's Photoshop efforts go over better with whatever we'd consider the mainstream internet user. Slashdot provides computer news and some of the most frustratingly inane arguing about each and every story without fail. The Internet Movie Database, originally "property" of "the internet" is very much a mainstream internet tool and continues to be "the internet's" definitive source for movie info, while Roger Ebert, the unofficial official movie critic of "the internet"'s already high profile has managed to rise since "the internet" adopted him. His stance on video games turned off many, but there's no widely agreed upon second place critic for "the internet" to worship. Computer hardware is taken care of by Anandtech or Tom's Hardware Guide (or any of the dozens of other hardware reviewing sites). Aint It Cool News continues to be "the internet's" movie site and, like SlashDot is famous for its attracting of relentless fanboys of particular movie properties. TheForce.net provides Star Wars news (an interest/passion among much of "the internet"). I'm sure there's an unoffical official site for every science fiction property (I'm condescendingly including LOST in there, Nate). Professional Wrestling is known for having one of the biggest divides between casual fans and "internet" fans. I'm not sure if I'll do a full review of the mechanics of how the Internet Wrestling Community functions (I think it might be so messed-up that it would be somewhat interesting to those that don't care one bit about wrestling.), but I'll say that I will. Due to that messed-up-ed-ness, there's no real universal destination, but 411mania and insidepulse are popular (though both have expanded to cover pop culture and more traditional "internet" interests). Simpsons fans have The Simpsons Archive where you can find "episode capsules" where you'll learn more than every wanted to know about everything about each episode of the show. Wikipedia and Google had begun as jewels of "the internet," but Google has long since become the standard for all users and Wikipedia, for better-or-worse, is in the process of becoming the standard for informal research (and formal research by those that don't realize that an encyclopedia that has a more detailed entry for the Green Lantern than for the Watergate scandal might not be the best source of information). The above wasn't an all-encompassing tour of the popular destinations, but that's a lot of them; each category could have more added and I glossed over some categories (such as shock sites, so it's your own fault if you see something in three clicks that you wish you hadn't). "The Internet" receives two-and-a-half stars not due to its interests, but due to its attitudes. The ending of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back really captured the whole concept, with two guys previously unfamiliar with the idea of the internet going after (and beating up) everyone that trash talked them on a movie website, not unlike Aint It Cool News. Aside from the fact that much of "the internet" has become used to anonymous, consequence-free trash talking, the significance is that the "mainstream" still doesn't understand the whole community, why anyone would visit, much less create, comment, or contribute to a websites devoted to, of all things, Star Wars action figures or the intricacies behind how the episodes on the Simpsons DVD's aren't 100% complete. The Something Awful "Photoshop Phriday" examples came from the Paintings of Light competition parts 1 and 2. [...] [...] January 16th, 2006 Dan hmm, I didn’t have a solid plan when I started this review. I simultaneously wanted to do a running list of “‘the internet’ thinks this, ‘the internet’ thinks that” and a traditional intro, body, rating, conclusion review. Unfortunately I had neither enough entries for that running list or a fully fleshed out concept for the traditional review, so we get a questionably coherent mishmash of both. hmm #2…I scrapped the list I had when I realized how long the traditional part was. The list wasn’t very good anyway. Anyway, enough meta. Notice those quotes up there? The ones around The Internet? Those signify that we’re not talking about the actual internet. Nope, we’re not discussing millions of computers, countless low-level hardware thingies that are probably made by Cisco, nor little understood software and protocols that link all of it together. In fact, we’re not even talking about the 750ish million people that use the internet. We’re talking about those people, the one’s that both provide and fuel almost every stereotype about the modern “geek.” The most famous parody/stereotype of “the internet.” It’s funny because it’s true. “The Internet” is almost a collective consciousness; the phrase “all your base are belong to us” means less than nothing to those not part of “the internet.” But those in that club thinks (or at least thought at one point in time) that it is hilarious. “The Internet” loves being first to know about something that’s become “pop-culture,” and isn’t afraid to hold that against you. In fact, here’s a disturbingly complete list of pieces of internet culture. Some of them never caught on with the general public, but some will look quite familiar. The anonymous nature of participation on the internet (no quotes) allows for those who care too much about something that is inconsequential to spend time (hours, days….years?) and defend their work because there’s someone else on “The Internet” that probably is working on something just like it. These two people will hate each other and will develop fanboys, the offical animal of “The Internet.” Because the internet is so unfathomably large, there’s stuff about everything. Without going into history, the type of people who were first using the civilian internet, were (standby as I stereotype and generalize)…well, let’s call them the type of people who had the technical background or interest to have the means and abilities to connect to the internet. Stereotypically (and accurately), these aren’t the people to have “mainstream” interests. I’m not necessarily judging what those interests might be, but needless to say, the population at large doesn’t share those interests. Being that college campuses were some of the first places people could experience what would become “the internet,” students with the interest and ability to participate in the internet made some of the first “home pages,” sites dedicated to whatever their left of mainstream interest happened to be. Combine that with the fact that much of the internet traffic was coming from other college campuses, a huge social network of young people who normally weren’t part of a huge social network developed. Before “the internet,” college campuses also served as larger-scale examples of the comic book store phenomenon, with numerous people with non-mainstream interests meeting enough people with those same interests to create a community where discussions could take place about those interests beyond the “Comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, and etc. suck and so do you” stereotypically presented by the “mainstream.” Members of “the internet” would indignantly mention that I skipped the discussion of BBSes, IRC, usenet, and other things that our readership wouldn’t care about. Oddly enough, “The Internet” doesn’t really have much to say about music. Sure, there are fansites, but if one were to list influential music websites that are just websites, pitchforkmedia.com will probably be the only he can think of. I’d guess that this is because the world of music is simply too huge and diverse; genres are so monolithic that there can’t be a general-purpose site serving all of it. Oddly enough, considering how similar members of “the internet” are, they have no central meeting point. That doesn’t mean there aren’t sites “they” frequent. Fark, sort of a weird news aggregator, serves as the general news-gathering device. To be fair to Fark, I know of no one, member of “the internet” or not, who didn’t get a kick out of it, at least during their first visit. If they want more scathing humor that specializes in topics of which “the internet” is conscious, there’s Something Awful. Both Something Awful and Fark have Photoshop contests; naturally the two subcommunities hate each other. Usually the Something Awful’s Photoshop efforts go over better with whatever we’d consider the mainstream internet user. Slashdot provides computer news and some of the most frustratingly inane arguing about each and every story without fail. The Internet Movie Database, originally “property” of “the internet” is very much a mainstream internet tool and continues to be “the internet’s” definitive source for movie info, while Roger Ebert, the unofficial official movie critic of “the internet”‘s already high profile has managed to rise since “the internet” adopted him. His stance on video games turned off many, but there’s no widely agreed upon second place critic for “the internet” to worship. Computer hardware is taken care of by Anandtech or Tom’s Hardware Guide (or any of the dozens of other hardware reviewing sites). Aint It Cool News continues to be “the internet’s” movie site and, like SlashDot is famous for its attracting of relentless fanboys of particular movie properties. TheForce.net provides Star Wars news (an interest/passion among much of “the internet”). I’m sure there’s an unoffical official site for every science fiction property (I’m condescendingly including LOST in there, Nate). Professional Wrestling is known for having one of the biggest divides between casual fans and “internet” fans. I’m not sure if I’ll do a full review of the mechanics of how the Internet Wrestling Community functions (I think it might be so messed-up that it would be somewhat interesting to those that don’t care one bit about wrestling.), but I’ll say that I will. Due to that messed-up-ed-ness, there’s no real universal destination, but 411mania and insidepulse are popular (though both have expanded to cover pop culture and more traditional “internet” interests). Simpsons fans have The Simpsons Archive where you can find “episode capsules” where you’ll learn more than every wanted to know about everything about each episode of the show. Wikipedia and Google had begun as jewels of “the internet,” but Google has long since become the standard for all users and Wikipedia, for better-or-worse, is in the process of becoming the standard for informal research (and formal research by those that don’t realize that an encyclopedia that has a more detailed entry for the Green Lantern than for the Watergate scandal might not be the best source of information). The above wasn’t an all-encompassing tour of the popular destinations, but that’s a lot of them; each category could have more added and I glossed over some categories (such as shock sites, so it’s your own fault if you see something in three clicks that you wish you hadn’t). “The Internet” receives two-and-a-half stars not due to its interests, but due to its attitudes. The ending of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back really captured the whole concept, with two guys previously unfamiliar with the idea of the internet going after (and beating up) everyone that trash talked them on a movie website, not unlike Aint It Cool News. Aside from the fact that much of “the internet” has become used to anonymous, consequence-free trash talking, the significance is that the “mainstream” still doesn’t understand the whole community, why anyone would visit, much less create, comment, or contribute to a websites devoted to, of all things, Star Wars action figures or the intricacies behind how the episodes on the Simpsons DVD’s aren’t 100% complete. The Something Awful “Photoshop Phriday” examples came from the Paintings of Light competition parts 1 and 2. [...]

]]> By: Empty Bookshelf Reviews » NES Games - Where’s Waldo http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-89 Empty Bookshelf Reviews » NES Games - Where’s Waldo Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:09:32 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-89 [...] This game sucks. There’s nothing else to say. This is THE reason why Roger Ebert hates video games. The people involved took such an incredibly easy concept and made it very difficult for themselves and the players, and what’s more, no fun to play. And if it’s not fun to play, it’s not worth buying. I mean seriously, if they can make plumbers go down pipes, and ducks “Pogo Jump” on snakes, you’d think that they’d be capable of making a decent still image, but you’d be thinking wrong. Also, just to mention it, this game did make seanbaby.com’s list of the twenty worst NES games ever, which kinda makes me proud to own such an abomination. [...] [...] This game sucks. There’s nothing else to say. This is THE reason why Roger Ebert hates video games. The people involved took such an incredibly easy concept and made it very difficult for themselves and the players, and what’s more, no fun to play. And if it’s not fun to play, it’s not worth buying. I mean seriously, if they can make plumbers go down pipes, and ducks “Pogo Jump” on snakes, you’d think that they’d be capable of making a decent still image, but you’d be thinking wrong. Also, just to mention it, this game did make seanbaby.com’s list of the twenty worst NES games ever, which kinda makes me proud to own such an abomination. [...]

]]> By: Empty Bookshelf Reviews » Block I of CUCVM, the Human Ribcage (1984 model), and Misc. http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-83 Empty Bookshelf Reviews » Block I of CUCVM, the Human Ribcage (1984 model), and Misc. Wed, 21 Dec 2005 06:04:06 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-83 [...] Note: I originally rated my final subject as a 1.5 star performance due to what I felt was excessive plagiarism. However, before I could publish this, our dictator chose to steal my triple-review format (though he admits this freely). Therefore, I awarded myself another half-star. Damn, Commies. [...] [...] Note: I originally rated my final subject as a 1.5 star performance due to what I felt was excessive plagiarism. However, before I could publish this, our dictator chose to steal my triple-review format (though he admits this freely). Therefore, I awarded myself another half-star. Damn, Commies. [...]

]]> By: Dan http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-81 Dan Sat, 17 Dec 2005 00:32:16 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-81 I saw that news item yesterday. I'm not actually a fan of the series, but for that sort of thing, it's nice to see the IP holders actually realizing it doesn't hurt them to not disallow fan projects for properties that are basically dead to the company. I saw that news item yesterday. I’m not actually a fan of the series, but for that sort of thing, it’s nice to see the IP holders actually realizing it doesn’t hurt them to not disallow fan projects for properties that are basically dead to the company.

]]> By: Matt http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-80 Matt Sat, 17 Dec 2005 00:06:32 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-80 I saw that you mentioned King's Quest. If you're a fan, you should check out the King's Quest fan game that was just given permission to move forward. www.kqix.com I saw that you mentioned King’s Quest. If you’re a fan, you should check out the King’s Quest fan game that was just given permission to move forward.

http://www.kqix.com

]]> By: Nate http://emptybookshelf.com/dan/2005/12/15/roger-eberts-take-on-video-games/comment-page-1/#comment-78 Nate Fri, 16 Dec 2005 05:08:27 +0000 http://emptybookshelf.com/?p=51#comment-78 Ha. You said, "Shenanigans". Ha. You said, “Shenanigans”.

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