CH Video Games Weekly: The Dorkiest Thing Ever

by Jeff Rubin on November 02, 2007

My guest for this week's A Winner Is You! is Will "backflip" DeGirolamo, executive editor of MEGATONik.com.

TALKING POINT: The recent Playstation 3 release Eye of Judgment comes with a camera, playing mat, camera stand, and a deck of Magic-the-Gathering-like cards. You set up your playing area, point the camera at the cards, and compete against online opponents. As you play, 3D graphics representing your cards act out your actions and duel on screen.

Is this the new dorkiest thing ever?

Jeff: This is great for people who have always wanted to try Magic: the Gathering, but were put off by all that icky human contact.

[upload:2456226:small:right:Careful not to point the Eye of Judgment at yourself.] Will: It reminds me of the game R2D2 and Chewie play on the Milennium Falcon.

Jeff: There it is. Comparing Eye of Judgement to Star Wars is the dorkiest thing ever.

Will: Eye of Judgment might seem weird to some people, but the idea of playing card games online is probably here to stay.

Jeff: There's a new generation that grew up collecting Pokemon instead of lighting ants on fire and playing good old fashioned games, like StarFox.

Will: It looks like some sort of predecessor to Microsoft's Surface concept.

Jeff: It's like Minority Report, but with minotaurs and elven priests.

Will: And thankfully, less Tom Cruise.

Jeff: Eye of Judgment is for serious nerds only. It's a fantasy-fulfillment game with overly expensive peripherals. The worst part is you can waste an unlimited amount of money buying new packs of cards. It's ridiculous. Wake me at the end of the month when Rock Band is out and selling full albums.

TALKING POINT: Why is everyone so excited about Assassin's Creed?

Jeff: I don't know about everyone else, but for me it's because my life is otherwise empty.

Will: People are really excited about how interactive environments, in terms of both buildings and crowds, but I think it's all because of the game's producer, Jade Raymond. [upload:2456010:small:left:There's no crying in video game design!]

Jeff: Being into a game because the main character is an attractive female is strange. Being into a game because the person who designed it is an attractive female is something entirely new.

Will: It only gets weird when you start getting into the non-human characters.

Jeff: I'm reserving judgment until I'm actually assassinating political leaders in medieval Jerusalem, but Assasin's Creed looks to be one of those rare games that at least tries to take advantage of modern hardware in a meaningful way. We've seen a million games where you hide by crouching in the shadows, but the idea of hiding amongst a crowd of people is fresh.

Will: Things like that are fun to try once but we'll see how they actually fold into gameplay.

Jeff: I've already done that, I just hope the game has a lawyer I can use.

TALKING POINT: The end of Portal features a soothing ballad called Still Alive. Is this videogaming's greatest original song with lyrics, or does the rap from the end of Gears of War still reign?

Jeff: I thought the Contra intro had words. Daaaa naaaaa naaaaaaaaa daaaa daaaaaaa! Doodoododododdoo doodoo do dooo.

Will: Original songs are still a relative rarity in games, and Portal's is certainly one of the best. It's funny, and gives some more insight into one of the game's only characters.

Will: I wouldn't really consider the end of Gears of War a song. It's stray samples from the game, so it sounds more like the ramblings of a crazy man.

Jeff: Or, possibly one of the Locust.

Will: Could be. I don't think Locust can drop beats like that, though.

[upload:2456245:small:right:We still believe, PaRappa. We still believe.] Jeff: You just haven't heard any good Locust music because most of it's very underground. The level of PaRappa the Rappa where a moose teaches you how to drive is still stuck in my head. I think that's actually all I know about driving.

Will: Sometimes when I'm in class, the Master Onion karate song pops into my head. My classmates always look at me strange when I absent-mindedly kick them.

Jeff: Good thing you are paper-thing or it might hurt. My all-time videogame song is still the opening of ClayFighter. I still can't believe an SNES can make those sounds, or that I've managed to mention ClayFighter two weeks in a row.

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