I've got stuff from about eight different games in here. You'd need a fire breathing horse to tote it all around, too.

The real reason you should plunk your dinero down to purchase Darksiders is because it’s a real game from a new developer, and God knows we need to support them.

Think about it for a second. We’ve all read the stories about the amount of layoffs across the videogame industry in 2009. One thing I can guarantee you is that these layoffs will not staunch the flow of Carnival Games, iPhone games, and licensed garbage being shoveled onto the Wii. What is far less likely is that the next Dead Space will get the eight figure budget it needs to get off the ground. That’s where companies like Vigil Games become so important. Joe Madureria formed Vigil because he has a passion for games, and because he had made a name for himself in the comic book field, Vigil was able to secure enough financing from THQ to turn out what most of us would recognize as an actual video game.

I don’t want to go all Chicken Little on everyone and say the sky is falling, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility to expect that with the rise of Natal, whatever Sony is calling their waggle wand, and the continued Wii steamroller, the type of game that most of us know and love could become a very small piece of the overall gaming pie.

Don’t think this is possible?

Really?

Remember when Flight Sims were all the rage?

Yeah. Me either.

Most everyone remembers 2007, for a couple of reasons. First, it was only 2 years ago. Second, it was a mighty fine year for videogames. Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Modern Warfare, Uncharted, The Orange Box, BioShock, Assassin’s Creed, Ratchet & Clank Future, Rock Band…the list is impressive in terms of both quantity and quality.

But you know what I remember about the games of 2007?

Very little.

In a valiant (vain?) attempt to keep up with the releases that year, and with a deathly fear of falling behind and not being able to be part of the ongoing conversation, I ripped through each and every one of those games like a fat kid at Old Country Buffet. It wasn’t pretty, and I can’t really say I enjoyed it as much as I should have.

That’s why this past year I made a conscious effort to slow down the pace, to play each game until I was done having fun with it, and not get hung up in what might be looming the following Tuesday. And you know what? It worked. I definitely played a few less games than in years past, but I got more value for my money, lost some of the sense of being overwhelmed, and most importantly I had more fun than I had before.

Looking back at the last few months of 2009, I noticed a few trends:

The average time I spent on a game was over 20 hours.

This is significant, because I don’t really spend much time playing multiplayer, so a game like Uncharted or Modern Warfare, while terrific games, aren’t great investments for me when you can blow through the solo campaign in around 8 hours. I got over 70 hours out of Dragon Age alone, completing two entire play-throughs, which is something I almost never used to do. I also completed two runs through Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time, and got over 25 hours out of that game.

I got a much higher percentage of Achievements/Trophies than I used to.

If you look at my Xbox Live or PSN accounts at games I have played in the past few years, you’ll see I’m definitely not an Achievement Whore. I would rarely go out of my way to get any Achievement or Trophy that you wouldn’t get simply in the natural course of finishing a game. This year, however, I got 96% on Ratchet, 90% on Assassin’s Creed 2, and it looks like I’ll be in at least the high 80′s when I finish Darksiders. I’m definitely still not an Achievement Whore, but I did learn that I could have some fun attempting a few of the challenges put out there by the developers, and extend the experience of a game I was enjoying. Compare Assassin’s Creed, which I plowed through without getting any non-essential Achievements, to the sequel, where I got just about everything you can get (I still have to go back and get all 100 feathers) and I can definitely tell you which game I enjoyed more.

The world did not end.

What was the reward for plowing through all of those games in previous years? Nothing, really. Maybe a small sense of pride that I was able to “keep up” with what everyone else was doing? That and a nickel will get you…err…whatever a nickel gets you these days.

This year, I was as involved as I’ve ever been, I only had to “lalalalanotlistening” once or twice as somebody discussed a pivotal moment in a game I hadn’t yet played, and life sort of just went on as usual. No self-imposed deadlines, no weekly trips to GameStop, and I really don’t feel like I missed out on anything. In fact, the only downside is that I’ve got a pretty healthy stack of games that I still want to play through, but that’s no big deal. I mean, the beginning of the year is where we all slow down and catch up on what we missed anyway, right? Because nothing worth playing ever comes out in the first part of the year, we all know that.

Right?

Thanks to the late, great George Carlin for the title of this post.

Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t played the game, and you don’t want to know what happens, stop reading now. There is no way to discuss this without just putting it all on the table.

Ok, here’s the deal for the folks who haven’t (or won’t) play it: In Modern Warfare 2′s fiction, you play an American Private 1st Class who has inexplicably been selected to go deep undercover to befriend a Russian warlord named Makarov who is apparently a Very Bad Man™. Your mission briefing says to “Follow Makarov’s Lead” and then the mission starts with elevator doors opening, and you find yourself with two other men and Makarov in an airport. Makarov turns to you and says, “Remember, no Russian” and then the four of you open fire on anyone and everyone in the terminal. As the player, you don’t actually have to shoot anyone, but you’re not allowed to do anything to stop it, and your only options are to join in the shooting, or simply walk through the level in first person and watch Makarov and his men kill what must be hundreds of innocent people, seemingly enjoying themselves. The mission then takes you outside where your group shoots its way out of the airport, killing scores of police and soldiers (where eventually you have to start shooting or the mission never seems to advance) before Makarov finally turns on you and kills your character, who he apparently was on to the whole time.

Obviously something about this mission (and the game itself) bugged me, since I’m taking the time to sit down and write about it…so what was it? I don’t find myself outraged, or disgusted, or any of the other buzzwords I would use if I were a guest on Fox News discussing Modern Warfare 2, but I was definitely bothered by it, and even borderline offended.

A brief side note about me using the word offended. If you know me at all, you should know it is nearly impossible to offend me in the traditional manner. Salty language, boobies on tv, using “black people like fried chicken” jokes to sell your product…none of this bothers me. I can understand why some people get upset over certain things, but as a rule it’s easier to just take it for what it is and move on.

So what exactly about No Russian did I find offensive? Three things, really. It’s manipulative, lazy, and irresponsible. I’d like to take each of these point by point to show you what I’m talking about.

It’s Manipulative

I don’t like being treated like I’m stupid. It makes me absolutely nuts, like calling Marty McFly “chicken”. When a story deliberately manipulates me to try to make me feel something, I take it as being treated like an idiot, and I’m immediately offended. There were a million more creative, effective ways Makarov could have been introduced into the story as a Very Bad Man™. They actually could have even used the same airport scenario, but simply framed it as a cut scene, used a news broadcast, or even military briefing to set the stage and explain why he’s the villain of the piece and the player should really want to end him. Making me participate in the slaughter (even if I didn’t fire a shot, which I didn’t) is simply trying too hard to be “edgy” and to make me feel something as a player, as well as being a blatant grab for headlines and controversy.

It’s Lazy

From a storytelling perspective, the entire scene makes no sense. I’m playing a Private that five minutes earlier was just showing Afghani militiamen which end of a rifle to hold, and now I’m being sent deep undercover on a mission to…do what exactly? It’s not really explained. Makarov is really, really evil and he must be stopped. So you’re going to be his best friend and get close to him so we can…what? Kill him? Ok. I’m standing next to the son of a bitch with a gun in my hand as he’s about to murder hundreds of innocent people. Howsabout if I put a bullet in his brain right then and there? If I’m not there to do that, why the crap have they sent me undercover in the first place? The entire scene is there simply so Makarov can kill your character (whom you’ve had all of 10 minutes to become invested in, so no big deal there), and prove that he’s not only a Very Bad Man™, but he’s also currently one step ahead of the good guys. Obviously, if you killed him before the airport sequence, the game would be very short…but that’s not my problem, is it? If Woody had gone straight to the police, blah blah…write a better story, guys.

It’s Irresponsible

I must be getting old, but I’m finding that “gritty realism” (which I’ve sort of poked holes in via the paragraph above) in my entertainment is getting less and less interesting to me. The world is a harsh place, and it seems to get harsher every day, at least if you want to believe the nightly news (which I don’t, but that’s a whole other story). Give me Night At The Museum over Green Zone any day of the week, and definitely give me Assassin’s Creed (which has plenty of killing, but it’s all set against a backdrop that is stylized and much brighter in tone) over Modern Warfare.

Setting a level of a videogame in an airport and asking a player to kill innocent civilians during a time when very real assholes are attempting to do the same thing on a regular basis is extremely irresponsible to me. I’m a huge proponent of free speech, and Infinity Ward has every right to make whatever kind of game they want, and to tell (however poorly) whatever kind of story they want. I just assumed that maybe if they’re smart enough to design a game that is technically pretty amazing, and is actually relatively fun to play as a shooting gallery, perhaps they would simply know better.

Here’s the deal: Modern Warfare 2 was going to sell millions of copies regardless. No Russian is the kind of transparent cry for attention that I would expect a lesser developer (or Rockstar) to try in order to get people to notice their marginal game. It doesn’t need to be there, it doesn’t add anything to the experience (hell, you’re given an option before you start the game to skip the mission entirely), and in the end I don’t think it even really generated that much controversy. I feel like Mass Effect got more media play for its silly sex scene than Modern Warfare got for an airport massacre, which I guess paints a picture of what is completely wrong with our values and our media, but that’s a rant for a different day.

Here are the real reasons for the delay, though:

• There was a 2-3 week break built into the schedule to accommodate my vacation, and to allow Pete (my recording / mixing partner) to move and break down / set up his studio.
• Turns out doing everything yourself takes a long time. Who knew?
• I ended up having to start one of the songs over from scratch due to some issues with the recording. I’ve pretty much known this all along, but was sort of avoiding dealing with it.
• I simply lost momentum a little bit there. This is not a huge deal, and it’s mostly (mostly) due to the nature of a project like this. Some of these songs are years old, and even the newer ones were starting to grate on me after hearing them over and over for the better part of this year. It doesn’t mean I like them any less, I’m still very confident that this album is going to be really good, but I needed to get away from them for a little bit.
• Lastly, and most importantly, I really want this CD to be as good as it can be. If that means that it takes a little longer to be released, so be it. It’s not like I’ve got a concert tour scheduled and I need to get out of the studio and on the road by November. I can take my time, but don’t worry…we’re not talking Axl Rose Chinese Democracy take my time here. I just want to cross some I’s and dot some T’s, and make sure that this sumbitch will be worthy of all the time I’ve spent working on it and talking about it.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support. It’ll be done soon, I promise.

The CD will be titled:

Jeff Parsons – Solo

And the cover art will look like this:

I’d like to thank Christina Tullo for the use of her photograph. Visit her at Designedbreakdown.com to check out some of her work. It’s really great stuff.

Please note: this isn’t completely final, and the CD you eventually hold in your grubby lil’ hands may look slightly different. Offers may not be combined. Void where prohibited.

Next up? Finish recording (the last bit of writing was finished yesterday) and announce a release date for this sumbitch.

Thanks again for all of your support.

For those of you that follow me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been blathering on and on about my “Weekend with Metallica”. Well, it happened this past weekend in scenic Newark, NJ and now is as good a time as any to fill you in on the details.

Some background, first. I’ve been a fan of Metallica since 1984, when I traded Bob Peluso a Dwight Gooden rookie card for his Ride The Lightning cassette. I remember the first time I listened to Fight Fire With Fire. It actually scared me a little bit, but I was hooked. I defended the band when people bitched that the drums sounded funny on …and Justice For All (they did, but the songs were great), when they shortened the song lengths on the Black Album (yes, but the songs were still great), and I defended them when they cut their hair during the Load era (so what, at least the songs were…umm…wait a sec..). I even went and saw Some Kind Of Monster in the theater.

Anyway, you get the idea. I’ve literally been a card-carrying member of the Metallica fan club for over 10 years. I’ve never joined a fan club for any band, ever (not even The Kiss Army, and if you know how big of a Kiss fan I was at one point, this will mean something to you) but the Metallica Club seemed worth it. For your $50 bucks a year, you get a T-shirt, a quarterly (ish) magazine called So What!, and best of all you get the opportunity to get tickets to shows early. Not only do you get early shot at tix, but I’ve been able to get into special events such as when they played the Roseland Ballroom for an MTV special during the press tour for Garage, Inc. I was also interviewed for the MTV Icon special due to my membership and close proximity to New York. Actually, I sort of made a mockery of that interview, and not surprisingly the footage wasn’t used. I wonder what ever became of it? Ah, well…a story for another day.

The latest fan club perk was an invite to the Meet and Greet prior to the concert on 1/31/09, at the new Prudential Center in Newark. Obviously I was excited. I’ve met plenty of musicians in my time; hell, I met Ace F’n Frehley twice, for the love of Lemmy. But this was gonna be different. This is Metallica, motherfugger! All I wanted to do was not make an ass of myself, which I thought was a pretty attainable goal.

I had no expectations heading into this whole deal, since the instructions read:

“Not all band members can come to all the meet and greets all the
time. There is no guarantee that you will meet any of the band members.
Sorry.”

That’s not very encouraging, is it? Or maybe it’s just a way of managing expectations? Either way, I went in with the thought that I’d be satisfied with whatever happened.

Here’s how it worked: I had to be at the venue by 5pm, four hours before Metallica would hit the stage. I met the representative near the will-call booth, and my name was ticked off of a list. This is when I got the first indication that this would be pretty cool. There were only 18 people attending the Meet and Greet. I was afraid it would be a room chock-full of sweaty Metallica fans throwing elbows for the chance to touch James’ beard. Not so. This was looking promising.

Around 5:30, we were led into the bowels of the arena. The view looked something like this:

Hey, cool! A giant "Live Shit" box set!

We continued down a few more concrete hallways (I couldn’t resist a hearty, “Hello Cleveland!” which actually got a few chuckles), until we reached the lovely place where the Meet n Greet would be held. Any visions of a catered, soft couch-filled room were quickly dashed. Instead, we got this:

We were actually told to line up, backs against the wall. I think he was kidding.

No sweat, I can stand in a cold hallway for a few hours to meet me some Metallica. And basically, that’s exactly how it went. First, we were given some ground rules, but I won’t bore you with the details. Essentially, they were: Don’t Be A Dick.

Not long after our briefing, our first Meeter and Greeter came out: Robert Trujillo, the man on the bass. Mind you, I have had over a week to think of what I’m going to say to these guys. So when Rob gets to me, what do I say?

“Hey man, nice to meet you.”

That’s it.

I didn’t even have anything to get signed. I’ve always said “I’m not an autograph kind of guy. I know I met them. Why do I need a signature?” Suddenly the ignorance of this statement smacked me square in my enormous nose. “You may never get this opportunity again, fucktard. Have. Them. Sign. Something.”

But what? I was purposely travelling light, since I didn’t want to be toting a bunch of crap around for 8+ hours that day. Then it hit me: I have my Metallica Club membership card in my wallet. I flipped it over. It’s blank on the back…perfect! Rob quickly signed it, and then this happened:

One cool, one tool.

I thanked Mr. Trujillo, and he went on his way. When I was handed back my camera, I looked at the picture. Oh, Christ. I wanted to ask him to come back so I could try to look less like the kid that says “Don’t throw me away” in the ARC commercial, but it was not to be.

Ok, I sort of borked the first one, but hopefully there’d be three more chances to get it right. While I was still wallowing in my eggheaded-ness, who should walk in but Mr. James Hetfield.

Oh. Shit.

There is a very short list of people on this planet who I could possibly be intimidated by, and Hetfield is on that list. I’m that big of a fan. But, ya know what? I’m gonna nail this one. I’m near the end of the line, and I’ve got about 16 Meetings n Greetings to get my act together.

Hey, what’s he doing?

Oh, he’s gonna start down this end. Wonderful.

I’m so fucked.

He quickly makes his way to me, and I hand him my membership card. Before I can say anything, he turns it over and says, “Ooh, the Megadeth fan club.”

Nobody laughs.

His assistant nervously looks on as James signs my card and hands it back to me. James says, “Wow, I’m not doing so well with the jokes today.” The assistant looks more nervous. My own comedy instincts take over, and I say, in my best suck-up voice, “No, Mr. Hetfield, sir. Joke. Very funny. Yes!”

It hangs there for a second, I’m pretty sure the assistant starts to sweat a little, and then James lets out a hearty laugh. Seeing that it’s ok, everyone else starts to laugh. The assistant snaps this picture, and James shakes my hand and gets on with his business.

Seriously, we were laughing. No drugs involved.

Ok, I can do this! I still look sort of like a jack-o-lantern in a vest, and I didnt get to ask James the question I had in mind, but at least we had a laugh.

Before I could really think too much, Kirk was upon me. This time I was ready, I got in my question about adding The Judas Kiss and My Apocalypse into the set, he answered that they were rehearsing them, and hoped to add them soon. We took a pic, shook hands, and he told me to enjoy the show.

I should've made a "metal face".

Hey, this isn’t so bad! If Metallica only had 9 members like Slipknot, I may be able to not sound like a bumbling fool by the time the last few guys came out.

Well, three down, Lars to go. Something told me that we’d be waiting a while, based on what I know about our Danish friend. Especially since I heard the band rep saying that Lars had to finish filming his part for a Motorhead documentary. The dude’s a pretty serious Motorhead fan, and also a pretty serious talker. This could take a while.

It really didn’t. About 10 minutes later, Mr. Ulrich sauntered (and I do mean sauntered) in to the hallway. He made a beeline to our end of the line and proudly proclaimed, “I’ll bet nobody has started down your end!”

“Actually, James did.” I answered.

Lars looked crestfallen. “Well, fuck that. I’m going back to the other end then.”

And he did.

We got a good laugh out of it, and I waited for him to make his way down to me. Contrary to everything you may have heard or read about Lars Ulrich, let me tell you that he was absolutely charming, polite, and very cool. Watching him interact with a 7 year old fan that brought his snare drum head to be signed was priceless. I will continue to defend this man against all comers.

We had a quick conversation about adding the new songs as well. His answer? “Ask the singer! I’d play Judas tonight if it were up to me.” He also let it slip that they’d be back in the area in November to play Madison Square Garden. I said I’d see him then, and off he went.

Rock stars wear scarves indoors.

And then it was over. We thanked the band representatives and were led out to the arena floor and I went to find my seat. The concert that night was great, but that’s sort of a given. I’ve now seen Metallica 14 times in my life, and they’ve never disappointed. Of the three shows I saw in the last two weeks, the show on the 31st had my favorite setlist, and the most energy. I may have been a bit biased, since I was practially walking on air at that point, but there ya go.

I’d like to thank the Metallica Club, and more importantly, Metallica, for making this happen. When a band has been around and achieved the kind of success that they have, they certainly don’t have to continue to do things like this. The fact that they do, and they were four genuine human beings means that I’ll continue to proudly fly the Metallica flag.

Oh yeah, they also still fucking rock harder than just about anyone else.

My swag. The pic links my gallery of photos from that day.

Thanks for indulging me. Rock on.