Bioshock 2 announced; my excitement is negligible

Game Informer's latest cover story broke news of the sequel to one of this generation's most beloved IPs, Bioshock. Now, it seems most people out there had a lot more love for the underwater distopian shoot-em-up than I did, but even so, it seems some folks are concerned as to the direction the new title will be taking. Tracy John, an intern at MTV.com posted an interesting article on his reaction to the cover story here, and I have some thoughts of my own.

The biggest reveal of the GI cover story was that this go around, you'll be playing as a Big Daddy, Rapute's hulking deep sea divers on steroids peacekeepers. These are the alpha dogs of the Bioshock universe and one of John's qualms was it wouldn't be exciting if you felt like Superman. Indeed, Game Informer reports that "average splicers only pose a threat to you in large numbers; alone, they barely even rate a glance." Ho hum, sounds boring to me. Actually, sounds plodding, since it's clear developer 2K Marin will want to keep you busy, probably by constantly throwing room after room of splicer groups at you. I also agree with John that trying to make the player feel like a Big Daddy is problematic. They are lumbering beasts, and although they could be surprisingly past in BS 1, they are still bulky and ungraceful. Personally, it doesn't appeal to me to play as some 400 pound behemoth whose walk shakes the ground they walk upon. However, I can imagine I'm in the minority on this.

this time, you'll be on the other side of that diving helmet

My biggest problem with BS 2 is that it just seems like too much of the same, and rather stressful. You mind as well call it Bioshock 1.1 since you ended BS 1 doning a Big Daddy suit and protecting Little Sisters, just like what seems to be the case in the sequel. I found it extremely stressful to protecting the Little Sisters from savage mutants as she extracted Adam from corpses. Perhaps this is what 2K intended, but it was an unenjoyable feeling of stress.

Also to file under the heading of Been There Done That is setting. First, we're back in Rapture, the failed dystopian underwater city. It's ten years later, but it doesn't really look like much has changed. The dark, dingy, depressing environs of Rapture really weighed on me by the end of the first game and honestly I don't feel like spending another 20 hours in the exact same gloomy environment. While 2K Marin promises new areas to explore, they also stress that "there are certainly going to be elements of Rapture that you'll see and recognize, if not fully intact locations." Wow. Double yawn. I became bored quickly of all the similar locations in the first Bioshock and I can't say I'm stoked to be revisiting the same drab locales. John at MTV.com suggested a flashback level that showcases Rapture before all the wheels came off and I think this is fantastic idea. Rapture is such a richly imagined place and it's a shame you never get to see it in it's former glory. Please 2K, give us some variety - there is only so much leaky metal I can take.

Still another idea that feels tired that will seem to make a reappearance in the BS 2 is the "moral decision" concerning the Little Sisters. Basically when you kill a Big Daddy that is protecting a Little Sister in the first game, you could choose to either "harvest" (extract some kind of slug from the Sister thereby killing her and making you more powerful - yeah I never quite understood what was going on there) or "save" her. The main problem for me with this mechanic is that quite soon into the game I realized it didn't make a fuck's worth of difference which option I chose. If I chose "save" every time, Tenenbaum, the adoptive mother of the Sisters would send you a "present" basically filled with the same goodies you would get by harvesting the Sisters. Maybe the standard mode I played on was too easy, but I also never felt underpowered and therefore never was really hungering for more Adam; it felt more like a bonus than a necessity.

One thing I DO love about BS 2 is the Big Sister. Apparently she's one of the original Little Sisters who comes back to Rapture with a bad attitude and a giant fucking needle attached to her arm. She also wears a cage that the Little Sisters ride around in and have attached pink ribbons too. Adorable. While the idea of her being this all-powerful, unkillable huntress constantly tracking your ass down also seems like it might be unenjoyably stressful, overall she strikes me as one badass addition to the Bioshock universe.

Maybe I'm being unnecessarily harsh on Bioshock too. I guess it's just that I thought that the original game was a overrated and the sequal seems like too much more of the same. Still, the game is many months away and 2K may have a bunch more tricks up its sleeve. Here's hoping.

My new blog

Hey bloggin buddies! I'm pondering starting up a new blog based on gaming with a major gay twist, and I'm looking for a name. It's going to include the word "gaymer" cause that's just hot. I also am notoriously hard to please when it comes to games so I was considering something like grouchygamer.com or grumpygamer.com. What do you think? Please vote on the side bar! Any other suggestions?? Leave a comment. xo JB

so what about gay and grumpy?

Stuff I dig: Em & Lo

Em & Lo.com
Em & Lo are two sassy ladies who know a thing or two about sex. They are kind of like your more experienced, sexually empowered, always-fabulous cousin who sort of makes you feel bad about yourself but you don't really mind because she tells you how to give guys an out-of-this-world blowjob. Yeah, that kind of cousin.

Em & Lo dish on all the do's, don'ts and do-it-faster-harder-and-deepers of the dating, marriage and most of all, sex game. Referring to themselves as the "Emily Posts of the modern bedroom," the lovely ladies provide advise on sex, sexual health, pop culture updates, and dozens of other fun features. Oh, and I'm a featured contributor on their popular Wiseguys segment, so you can read about what I think of small penises and valentine's day presents. What could be better than that?

The Case of the Mysterious Magenta Light and Other Tales

Starring Jonathan Balthaser and Courtney Benson

So my dear friend Courtney, with whom I've had too many misadventures to count, surprised me last week by stopping by Brooklyn on her way back to school in D.C. We had some fun! After a hearty lunch at Yemen Cafe, we took a stroll down the promenade and took some nice pics. Afterwards, crazy old Chipsy just could not help herself from licking the Statue of Liberty.Walking back, we came upon a mysterious magenta light bathing the sidewalk and we couldn't figure out where it was coming from! Neither of us had ever seen anything so. . .peculiar. It wasn't reflecting off anything, yet it didn't seem to be coming directly from anywhere either. Was someone toying with us? The game was afoot! We decided to go about investigating the mystery like proper detectives by tagging and documenting the evidence, as well as writing down clues. Just as I went to tag and photograph the mysterious light, it dissappeared. And so did the sun! Ah ha! Our first, and sadly, as it came to be, only clue.

The elusive and baffling light toyed with us for a good 10 minutes

Undeterred by its dissappearance, I tagged the spot where the light had once been.We waited for the light to reappear and for more clues, but the trail had gone cold. We were perplexed, but it was getting chilly out and we decided it was time to head home.
We headed back to my pad and read through some old notebooks and journals of mine from Madrid and I was crying laughing remembering one particularly wild night in Toledo.

I love hanging out with Chipsy 'cause we can just shoot the shit for hours and be ridiculously silly and gossipy for hours and miles. Also outrageous things eventually happen to us and when they don't, we just make something up. Plus, we have a deep well of memories to draw on and drink deeply from. Ah, refreshing.

It's not all a bed of roses though. . .I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night thinking of that unholy magenta light. . .

Mr. Out of Bounds 2009

Last Thursday Rick and I attended the fabulous Mr. Out of Bounds contest at Stonewall. The contest was open to any athlete who belonged to a gay New York sports league and it was a "contest" to see who was the gayest? hottest? jock in New York. I couldn't really tell, but it was basically a bunch of hotties strutting around in their undies so I was alright with it. Also, it benefited the wonderful Trevor Project that operates a 24 hour gay suicide prevention hotline, I could feel less guilty about spending money on drinks. MTG's very own Patrick So was a contestant and won some auxiliary prize (I can't remember which one). He got a hug as his trophy!
I had never been to Stonewall and it was really fun! The house was packed and there were lots of cute boys hanging out. Two random people gave me drink tickets and there was just a great mood about the party. I ran into two random people: James Lecene, and actor I "worked with" (no thats not supposed to sound dirty, I sold concessions at a show he was in) in Provincetown several years ago and Arjuna, the ex of a roomate of my ex, Joe. Weird, small world. A bunch of the tennis boys were out to support our boy Patrick, and get toasted.
Afterwards, Sean, Tod, Rick and I went for pizza (which I abstained from, sticking to my fitness diet!)After that we headed over to Duplex for some fabulous local caberet singing. I actually got pretty hammered but it was a super fun and sexy night.

Our ever changing summer plans. . .

So, our summer plans are in flux. We are in a (hopefully) unique position where both of us will be free during the summer, me with no job, and Rick on vacation. Rick has to teach until the end of June, so our first plan was to head to Provincetown, hopefully get a job or two waitering, cocktail waitering, etc. and living the good life on the gay, gay beach. I had visions of dancing the night away with drag queens, biking shirtless down Commercial St. and checking out all the hotties, taking Kippy for runs on the beach, and just live simply with Rick.

Will we go? Its future is in limbo.

However, Rick was invited to apply to be a mentor for the New York City Teaching Fellows, NYC's crash course for new teachers. It's a sweet gig that pays $50/hour, and Rick knows someone on the selection committee so he has a great shot at making it. At first I was upset that our Ptown plans would be dashed, and I will still be miserable if I have nothing to do all day during July.

HOWEVER, since we will still have the majority of August with nothing to do, we are finally going to take our honeymoon, one year later. So, our plan as of now is a trip to Europe! Our itinerary changes daily, but this is how it's stacking up so far: We have roughly 3 weeks, (NYC still has not published when school will start in the fall, and I'm hoping it's more like 4 weeks) so we are basically planing the first half in cities and the second half in naturey places (read: the beach). So check out the map.

View Larger Map

Were planning on flying to Copenhagen, where we'll send our one year anniversary! From there take the train to Berlin for 3 or 4 days. Then it's off to Praha so Rick can reconnect with his Czech roots where we'll stay with my old friend Saro from highschool. Hopefully we'll meet some nice Bel Ami boys there as well. Next its off to Vienna for some wiener schnitzle and a drink at a fabulous cafe. We'll eventaully bid auf wiedersehen to Austria and boun giorno to Italy when we get to Venice. From there we'll head east, bumming our way down the Croatian coast, hopefully ending up in Split. We'll then cross the Adriatic Sea and make our way to Rome, where we'll fly out of. Sound ambitious? Maybe. But as I said, it's a very preliminary plan, and certainly some things will change.

Do you guys have advice? Suggestions? Places we simply can't miss or an amazing hotel or secret B&B that we'll love? Let me know!!

Elevation

Fanboy (n) Technocratic zealots; evangelicals of geekery. Characterized by irrational advocacy of a particular OS, console, company, or franchise.


For those of you who are not tuned into the daily video game blogging chatter (i.e. gaming dorks like me), there's been a huge bruhaha over a little PS3 game known as Killzone 2. Killzone has been hyped by Sony as the next must have Halo-killing game and has driven many PS3 fanboys into a crazed, mouth-frothing frenzy. The PS3 is banking big time on Kill Zone 2 to make a huge splash and these high expectations have led to elevated emotions, drama, and some nasty name calling. Unfortunately, what hasn't been elevated at all during this whole situation is the level of discourse. Most of the comments on the professional review pages boil down to hyperbolic rants rather than well thought out arguments. What will it take for the fanboy zelots to become drowned out by more rational minds? Will discussions over videogames ever reach the level of cinema or perhaps even art?



Almost across the board, KZ2 has received glowing reviews. Destructiod called the multiplayer "hectic, tense and full of destruction", while ING wrote that KZ2 is "an outstanding evolution of the franchise, a bullet and adrenaline-fueled rampage against an implacable enemy and a fantastic shooter for the PS3." The graphics were universally praised as arguably the best on any current system. Kotaku.com wrote that "Every scene, every moment of Killzone 2 is teeming with detail and nuance, from the drift of smoke, to discarded shells, to the flecks of concrete that pop off when you shoot a wall."

As one after another stellar review was filed, PS3 owners mouths began salivating and their chests puffed up at the thought of having another game to pla. . .er, be proud of after Little Big Planet. Then the unthinkable happened. Several website posted good reviews rather than great reviews and oh my, many PS3 owners did not like that one bit. Totalvideogames.com game KZ2 an 8/10, which sent many a fanboy into a manical rage. Some of the comments regarding the PS3 review:

Look at this! What have i see?! yeah.. a S.HIT sexbot fan make a review of a PS3 game... Stupid as.shole

learn how to review a game and maybe wouldnt be a microsh*ting fagtart

what is that smell of Bill gates semen? Oh Chris leyton farted. (Chris Leyton was the reviewer)

the reviewer obviously loves to buttfuck his 360 to death

Regardless of the fact that I don't quite see how referring to an Xbox as a sexbot could be construded as a criticism (a sexbot sounds awesome if you ask me), these comments make me sick (regardless again of the blatent homophobia). It's amazing to me the ire living in all of these fanboys. The most hilarious part is all these comments were posted before the game even came out. Alot of these commentors acted as if the review was a personal attack on their honor rather than the opinon of one games journalist. See that word? Opinon. That's all reviews are. But these fanboys are too immature to understand that and somehow feel compelled to spill their hate and zealotry all over the internet.

So will gaming discourse ever be elevated above the level of fanboy rants? Well there are glimmers of hope out there. Edge magazine seems has a shockingly mature reader base and although they gave KZ 2 a mediocre 7/10, the reader comments, while impassioned, have stayed relatively civil and well thought out. Hopefully more publications can strive for this more mature reader base to help improve the quality of discussions in the gaming community as I feel there is a market for this. I'm not saying were ready for The Paris Review for videogames, but a boy can dream. Because I really can't deal with many more fanboys. Unless they have sexbots.