Of course everything was made by me, except the parts that sucked… Doug did those.

Here are the first 30 minutes of the game, heavily edited and spliced into a ten minute video. Have any you readers gotten a look at Wolfenstein? What are your thoughts on the game so far? Here’s a lazy bulleted list of what I got from my short playthrough.

• Super violent, this game is reaching Solider of Fortune 2 territory in terms of graphic content. Hey, I ain’t complaining!
• Dosen’t bother with long introductions, I was shooting guys within five minutes of pressing start
• Semi-Open world shows promise, interested to see how its used in the rest of the game
• Upgrading black market system looks like something I’ll get addicted to, and… ACHIEVEMENTS!
• On the easy side (see: me meleeing everyone in the video) hopefully it picks up
• Rifling enemies isn’t nearly as satisfying as it should be
• Paranormal aspects of the game are very enticing

Nothing bad so far, but again, I’ve only played an hour so far. Tell me what you guys think of the game and the video!

My latest hopes were poured into District 9: A unique film that joins the talents of unknown (but promising) South African director Neil Blomkamp with well-known epic film connoisseur, Peter Jackson. District 9 tells a story of an alien race that has crash landed on Earth after an important direction module falls from their Mothership. The aliens leave their Mothership hovering over the populated South African City Johannesburg as the occupants descend from their ship in search of parts to restore their ride back home. The film follows the events of the conflict as planet Earth tries to cope with their new neighbors as well as simultaneously attempting to gain information on their advanced weaponry. Despite the promising concept: District 9 only proves to disappoint my expectations as the film constantly prefers to use the sword over the pen. That being said, there’s still some stimulating aspects of District 9, but they never rise above the rest of the crowd.

Wilkus holds up a badge, surely they'll cooperate respectfully

Instead of focusing on what District 9 could’ve been, let’s focus on what is in the film and how that fairs in comparison to its competitors. The narrative storytelling is a hybrid between fake-documentary style of shooting, mixed with the more traditional Hollywood execution. The film flip-flops between fictional interviews with made-up sociologists and news reporters and the standard “camera follows character’s actions” method. At first the jump between both styles is a little disorientating but as the plot continues it begins to favor the later, more straightforward method, making it easier to follow the events of the story.

Whenever people aren’t being interviewed on screen you’re likely to see one of two characters. The first and most prominent is Wikus van der Merwe, an appointed official whose job is to control the Alien occupation situation. The second is Christopher, one of the Alien “prawns” who’s attempting to restore energy back to his personal ship so he can repair the damages done to the Mothership. The two characters’ paths quickly cross over one another, and they soon figure out that they’ll have to work together to achieve a mututally beneficial goal. The problem is District 9 makes the false-assumption that audiences would care more about Wikus, as opposed to the more intriguing and unknown Christopher the alien. The majority of the film is dedicated to Wikus’ story, but you’ll find yourself wondering “When are we going to see Christopher’s side?”

I found the film's level of "awesome" directly correlated with this guy's screen time

However the characters prove to be less than unimportant around halfway through the film. Without spoiling anything, Wikus learns how to use the Alien weaponry, and then the story spirals into a variety of excuses to have firefights and explosions. From the halfway point till the end of the movie, there’s a constant barrage of bullets flying through the air and bodies imploding from extraterrestrial hazardous effects. To be fair to the focus of the film, the action scenes are remarkably well done. The advanced alien technology left the writers to think of a lot of creative ways to blow up the human body. You’ll see a plethora of crazy deaths that will keep you saying “Oh Snap!” even if it’s the tenth time you’ve seen the same execution.

To complement these high energy action sequences, the special effects of District 9 look fantastic. The Alien prawns look lifelike and realistic, and every weapon, mech, and ship looks like its a part of the world. The overall design of every fictional element in the movie is extremely well done; there’s an obvious level of detail that was intended and the efforts of the filmmakers and special effect crew have created one of the most impressive CGI effects in cinema.

Behold: The Mothership

The only inherit problem with District 9 is the expectations it may have set up. The first half sets up a lot of questions that you’ll assume will be answered in the second, but they never are. We never learn anything more about the Aliens than what we knew at the start, how they act, if they have social classes, how they reproduce, or even their basic anatomy. It might be a little bizarre to demand answers to all of these questions, but it’s more bizarre to leave every single question posed unanswered.

These complaints are specific to the type of person you are. So as long as you go into District 9 expecting a popcorn flick with stellar effects and impressive explosions, you’ll enjoy every second of the build up to the climax. It saddens me that District 9 wasn’t able to exalt the genre back into greatness (or at least create an interesting fictional alien race), but that’s a poor reason to look back on a film unfavorably. It might not be the latest and greatest creation in the Sci-Fi genre, but that doesn’t make it crap either.

Before you dive into a fictional world made up of polygons and textures, you should probably have a reason to spend so much time and effort to enjoy video games. I personally believe that video games will one day join the ranks of literature and film as an “art form.” Video games allow you to interact with the world you’re put into whereas movies and books prefer to bring you along for the ride, as long as you don’t touch anything. Because of this reason, video games can supply an experience that is totally unique and you may never get a second chance to try out.

Video games are still a very young industry, and still has time for its Citizen Kane to be created

The medium is still pretty young, with the initial creation dating back to 1972 when Pong was released almost forty years ago. When compared to cinema, forty years is nothing. The most renowned and well-known films such as Citizen Kane or The Godfather didn’t even have scripts yet. Meaning there’s still sometime for that one game to come out that changes everyone’s mind about the industry and deem it “acceptable.”

Similar to books and movies, video games also have genres and not every genre is for every person. There are plenty of games out there that are designed specifically for a demographic I like to call “Bros.” These games are usually ultra-violent, extremely competitive, and very difficult to understand if you don’t have a history playing them for a few years; games like Gears of War or Halo would be in this category.

There are also games designed for veteran players and have increased difficulty and try to challenge the player as much as possible; games such as Resident Evil, or Grand Theft Auto would fit in this niche. If you’ve made it this far into the article, you’re probably not the type of person who would enjoy either “bro games” or “hardcore games.” Luckily for you, there are more genres that are more fitting to your interests.

In addition to the previous genres mentioned there’s also the “casual” market as well as the “hobby” market. Casual games consist of what most people think of when they think video games. Tetris, Pacman, Wii Sports, Peggle, etc. The “hobby” library consists of games that you’ve probably heard of before, but require a bit more skill than the “casual” games, such as Mario, Zelda, or The Sims.

Grand Theft Auto is very well-known, but it hardly represents what video games are about

So if you’ve never played a video game before, you’re best off starting in the casual area. These games seem simple at first, but are fairly rewarding and provide a basic vocabulary for how games tend to work. There’s usually a goal that you have to accomplish, and once you complete that goal you “win.” This is a pretty vague description, but it has to be established at some point. Video games share a lot of similarities with books. When you were in first grade you weren’t reading The Great Gatsby or even Harry Potter, they were far too advance and you’d lose interest and quit before you got to the good parts that everyone was talking about. Video games have a similar build-up.

Casual games are the “picture books” of the industry, very simple, very short, but enjoyable nonetheless. If you decide that you’re intrigued by the concepts laid out during the early stages you’ll want to upgrade to “hobby” games. Hobby games still stick to a simpler level of complexity, but they increase the scope. Instead of guiding Pacman through a maze and collecting white dots, you’ll get to control Mario and guide him through a 3D world and collect coins and stars. Hobby games are what Harry Potter is to books. Pretty rudimentary when it comes to concept, but even if Harry Potter had the least complex language in the history of text: there are still 500 pages of it and it’s going to take some time to burn through.

It’s quite possible than many people out there in the world have already made their way up to a Mario game on their own without a guide like this one, but that’s usually where the trail goes cold. These people usually don’t know where to go next, and assume it’s always the same thing and get bored of the hobby, which holds some water. Mario games have been around for 25 years and they’re all practically the same thing, so if you played nothing but Mario for four years I could understand why you didn’t feel so optimistic about future opportunities.

Simple games, such as Bejeweled, are a great way to introduce the way video games work to newcomers

The unfortunate fact is hobby games don’t even crack the surface of video game potential. Up till this point, every game mentioned flexes the players’ reflexes and processing ability that you use to solve a jigsaw puzzle, which is fine, but they’re capable of more intellectual thought. That’s where “entry-level” games make their appearance.

Entry-level games (despite their misleading name) are for people who have grown to understand how games work. These games focus more on what to do, rather than how to do it. The games to check out in this category include Prince of Persia, Fable 2 and Shadow of the Colossus.
The French developed Prince of Persia follows the tale of a scruffy thief traveling through the desert during ancient times when he stumbles upon a young woman who is in the midst of trying to save her kingdom from an ancient evil. This fantasy-filled, character focused story is for anyone who enjoys a good teasing love story with an ending you won’t see from Hollywood.

Fable 2 designed by British developers takes place in a fictional world entitled “Albion” you play as a Hero in the world who must fight off a corrupt King whose ambitions to save his deceased family turn into a quest for world-domination. Fable takes a lot of its atmosphere and storytelling from classic children’s books fairy tales.

The unique aspect of Fable is the long-lasting ramifications your decisions make. At one point in the game the player is asked to help a sheriff arrest some hoodlums in the town; if the player helps the town turns into a booming richville ten years down the line, but if they refuse the place turns into a dump filled with crime and prostitution.

Prince of Persia’s forgiving difficulty and focus on characters makes it the perfect entry-level game

Finally Shadow of the Colossus is another fantasy story coming out of Japan. A teenage boy brings his recently deceased love to a temple and begs the gods to restore her life. One god responds and says he will only return her to life after The Wanderer has destroyed 16 colossal stone giants in the fields. This is a story that’s told primarily through visuals and atmosphere keeps the player thinking both logistically and creatively. After all, what did these sixteen giants do to deserve death?

If any of those three concepts sound interesting to you, than hopefully I’ve inspired someone to make the commitment and try out video games for the first time. If you’re interested in playing any of the games I’ve mentioned you’ll have to buy the game, and the console that it’s for. Just write down the game you’re interested and go to your local Best Buy and say “I want to play ________ how can I do that.” Or if you want some more personalized buyer’s advice I suggest leaving a comment just below this article, and I’ll respond as fast as I can.

Even if you don’t go so far as to playing games, perhaps you’ll think twice next time you see an uninformed FOX news report about how they’re “destroying the youth.” If you do that much, I’ll be a happy man.