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 From
the Prophet Jamal's Letter to Public Housing Municipal Manager
Randall Shirkwood, Paragraph 5, Lines 5-7
“Listen
here, agent of the White Man, for my chronic purchasing of video
games is not the issue; the issue is my lack of money to pay the
rent. Let you not dally in issues with which you have no obvious
experience.” |
Not one dedication to the unseen of the college campus, the
gamers? Aside from some pithy references, not one writer on PIC has
done a bit about the various types of gamers? A shame, for sure.
Well, good thing Yours Truly is taking time off from playing Def Jam:
Fight for New York (best brawler game out there) so he can educate you on
some primary sects of the gaming community that somehow remain a small facet of
the college experience.
I thought I’d start off the list with newer, more common gamer cliques across
America’s campuses: the Halo Fanatic, the Classics-Only Guy, and the Madden
Zealot.
Halo Fanatic
"Madden Zealots are an odd bunch akin to the Halo Fanatic:
normal by day, insane by night." I totally rock with the assault rifle.
And one time I flogged the dolphin to Cortana porn.
Only once, though.
What Counter-Strike is for the PC, Halo is for the Xbox.
Originally slated as a space opera more suited for science fiction buffs and
fans of early Bungie games, Halo somehow seized on tight to the faces of
college gamers across America and stealth-jerked a smash-hit multiplayer game
into everyone’s eyes.
In high school, I honestly believed only 15 other people played as
religiously as I; the others being the remaining guests of local LAN parties.
College, and Halo 2, changed all that. Microsoft switched marketing gears
and suddenly every prick with an Xbox and two thumbs was pistol-sniping over the
LAN. Good for getting into back-to-back games with little downtime, bad for
overall quality. As I am a gamer adjusted to following a certain credo of gaming
ethics, it became annoying to see 80 billion fucknuts, all named
variations of “Rick James Bitch,” suicide-bombing my base.
Back on track though, and more to the point, this game is an excuse for
grown men to metaphysically beat the ever-living shit out of each other.
Multiple theories point to this factor alone as the contributing cause for the
successes of Halo and its sequel. Men love violence; Halo
delivered. Enter the Fanatic.
The Fanatic is unique among gamers as the Halo series remains their
priority source of entertainment even after years on the market. Sure, they
purchased a few other shooter titles along the way, possibly picking up a racing
game or sports title as gifts, but those faded with time. Halo,
conversely, burns bright in a Fanatic’s heart.
Fanatics have no defining physical or mental characteristics aside from
normal, masculine qualities, making their kind tough to pick out in a crowd.
They come in all shapes and sizes, morphing from average student into
spittle-spewing-psychopaths during Xbox Live and LAN games, and typically
they are harmless unless provoked (i.e. getting their asses served to them in a
match). With the advent of the third installment fast approaching, expect more
of these to resurface from hibernation.
“Classics-Only” Guy
No one can step to my dual Klobbs. Bitch.
Self-referenced as a “retro” gamer, the “COG” doesn’t play video games in any
linear fashion or original form. Instead, COGs use older, simpler games as
proving grounds for competition. COGs tend to gravitate towards each other;
gangs of these archaic purveyors huddle together in dorm rooms repeating the
same level of Goldeneye over and over to break that 20-second
level-completion record set by some Korean exchange student from Yugoslavia.
COGs are a relatively new form of gamer. The advent of next-gen consoles
and, as they claim, the bastardization of gameplay for the sake of sales has
caused these once prominent gamers to revert back to the N64, the Dreamcast, and
even older systems for shitty graphics glory.
Madden Zealot
I just completed a 60-yard touchdown pass on a blitz with three-man
coverage on the receiver. I think I just felt my dick shift.
During the heyday of arcades, sports games meant Patrick Ewing bouncing 30
feet into the air, doing a double somersault, freezing momentarily in mid-air
(for the cameras, of course), and then effortlessly
slamming a fiery orange sphere into the basket for two points—all while Marv
Albert screamed, “BOOOOOM SHAKALAKA!” In football, you could pick up the wide
receiver over your shoulders and slam his uppity ass onto the Astroturf to end a
play (or after the play, your choice). Sports were a fantastical retreat from
reality, exploring the possibilities of the imagination as if gravity and
fair-play rules didn’t exist.
Then Madden came out and suddenly people screamed for more realism in their
favorite sports. Once-wild titles started to emulate real-life situations,
playbooks, and laws of gravity. Coupled with people’s self-reassurance that
purchasing annual re-releases of the same game with minor upgrades to controls,
graphics, and stats was truly a swell idea, the Madden Zealot was born among
college gamers.
Madden Zealots are an odd bunch among campus gamers akin to the Halo
Fanatic: normal by day, insane by night. They are hard to identify, as sports
register in the hearts of many a man and simply perusing a gamer’s collection
hardly qualifies as testament. Best bet to identify a Zealot is to ask about
fantasy football. It’s a religion to those people, and Madden games are their
equivalent to church services.
Stay tuned next time when my ode extends to three more college gamer cliques.
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