“I haven’t played Street Fighter in years,” Mike said as he awkwardly picked up the controller. Mike, a friend I’ve known since junior high school, but I hadn’t seen in years, had never really played much of the Xbox at all either. He was used to the Playstation controller. But he shrugged as he looked at the screen of characters in Street Fighter IV. A vague smile came over him after he passed each one. Read more »

A child is crying in terrible fits in the corner of some bleak and purple alley. It’s night and she is desperately clutching her stuffed bear. There are ravenous dogs searching for her and she is hiding in cars whose trunks can be opened with dance magic. And then you or me or whoever happens to be hovering over the controller, a desperate gaming hunchback salivating over pixels, initiates that dance magic. Then the dogs dance. All of them. Their leader, supposedly a shaman hound made of glistening white fur, dances so incredibly hard that he has a brain aneurysm and collapses. You killed him with genital thrusts so powerful it cut off the blood flow to his brain. Read more »

What you’re going to immediately notice about I Got Next, the independent documentary about the fighting video game scene, is that everyone can watch and enjoy it. Even the most dedicated of gamers see the world of fighting games and the real life tournaments that surround them as an endless pit of quarter circles, seemingly ancient Egyptian terminology, and athletic-like dedication that would make pre-ear gnawing Mike Tyson astounded. Read more »

“The actual experience of playing Guitar Hero is nothing like playing a real guitar,” says Andrew Clarke, “and it’s because you’re basically just following instructions. You’re just following along with something that has already been written. You’re just concentrating on an on and off switch, hitting the right notes at the right time. That’s not actually playing music. What it actually is the most like, and what makes it great, is listening to music.” Read more »