It’s an old cliche at this point to mention the future hasn’t lived up to Neal Stephenson (not to mention William Gibson). Insert your own flying car joke here. But where’s the innovation in gaming?

We’re constantly reminded how our lives are innundated with social media – talking heads are telling us how it’s going to be the downfall of society; it causes car accidents, unplanned pregnancies and obesity.

But why isn’t it being applied to gaming? I can understand how some fantasy games have a hard time imagining a way to interact (Appocalypse aside), but there are plenty of sci-fi MOGs out there that could take such great advantage of something as simple as texting, let alone entire apps. Hell, even the fantasy games can come up with some fun stuff to do – opt-in to receive threatening texts from the Lich King!

I hate to even bring it up, but if I were LARPing in this day and age, I don’t think my iPhone would ever have a full charge, because there’d be a constant barrage of texts, videos, emails and maybe – MAYBE – a phone call or three draining the battery constantly.

I’m probably delusional. I mean, more than normal. But if I were el jefe of a game, never mind making it cross-platform. It would be cross-media. The game would exist on every medium you can imagine.

And some you can’t.

Seriously – why aren’t games sending postcards? Get crazy! The post office is hurting anyway, drop a few hundred/thousand/million postcards with treasure map puzzle/riddles on them to your subscribers, Blizzard! EVE Online is all about thinking outside the box – why not a postcard campaign against some figures in the game, accusing them of a conspiracy or some such rubbish? Introduce some crazy plot threads, make the majority of it take place OUTSIDE the game, then tie it together in some huge in-game event!

It just seems there’s so much out there that nobody’s taking advantage of. I don’t have time to play ANY game right now – but I can IM like a mofo!

Let’s get crazy.

I think I’m just getting old.

When I look at previews and hear people talk about some awesome new game that looks great, it just doesn’t click with me. I’ll be the first to confess that even the two games that I care about right now – Star Trek: Online and Left4Dead (1 & 2) – are sitting untouched on my computer.

But these new games that offer so many narrative trees and paths and options… I don’t know. I guess I just get lost. I can’t invest myself into the kind of time commitment that once found me printing (and laminating) maps, price charts and homemade dungeon guides for Asherons Call.

Sometimes I just want to log in for five minutes to shoot some zombies in the face, and that’s all I need, you know?

But even beyond that – the games just don’t have that same emotional hook nowadays that they used to. Remember this opening cinematic? One of the best ones I’ve ever seen to this date – it still comes up in n3rd conversations on a regular basis.

That still gets my nipples hard. But if you showed that video to a gamer now? They’d spit at you. And then you’d have to choke them out, cut them into small pieces, and drop the parts into the ocean (in the jetstream where they wouldn’t get discovered, thank you very much, Dexter!). But I still think it mixed so many elements in perfectly – the camera work, the soundtrack (loooove that music), and the sound effects (the chatty marines!).

Or what about this video? Remember this oldie-but-goodie? Mechwarrior was a game that I thought was too complicated back then, and now it might as well have been on an Atari 2600 for as simple as it is compared to today’s games!

Two great games that had fantastic intro movies. And the best part? Nobody was killing kids.

We hit HappyJack’s last night to rock out some Karaoke. Well, that’s what everyone ELSE did – my goal at parties is to bring incredibly unhealthy food and spend the rest of the night eating as much of it as possible. I do that out of concern for everyone else’s well-being, of course. I’m just a caring guy like that.

The really sad thing about Rock Band is that it lets you get away with singing softly. Personally, I think you should really have to scream. I mean, who ever heard of a soft Korn song?

Kwipette was SCREAMING Metallica. Really.

Dr. Sexy tearing up the Beatles