Holy hell, it’s the first real Hit or Miss of the decade! This week: James Cameron defends his tacky and cringe-inducing use of metaphors by using a tacky and cringe-inducing metaphor to criticize gamers; EA Sports sticks by Tiger Woods mostly because they’re screwed and have no choice; EA Sports suddenly remembers that NBA Jam is frickin’ awesome; and Microsoft inspires a wave of indifference with the announcement of Game Room.
Cameron: Chain-Smoking Avatar Character a Criticism of Gaming
I know gamers tend to get reflexively defensive whenever the slightest hint of criticism is levied against us, but allow me a counterargument here that’s slightly (but just slightly) in defense of James Cameron: People have actually played video games to death.
So yes, while James Cameron probably could have linked Sigourney Weaver’s chain-smoking Avatar character to unhealthy gamers in a more tactful way, that doesn’t make the line of argument universally unsound. To reiterate: When people have played video games to death, I’d say there’s a valid criticism here somewhere.
But really, gamers, you’re going to complain that a metaphor in Avatar is too clunky and heavy-handed? Avatar? The movie about nature-loving natives being attacked by a brutal American-led army to seize a potent resource literally called “unobtanium”? Just be happy Cameron didn’t throw in a scene showing Weaver’s character playing whatever the hell the World of Warcraft of 2154 is (probably still World of Warcraft) and saying, “Boy, protagonist Jake Sully, I sure don’t care about my human body!” while freebasing heroin.
EA Sports Explains Why They’re Sticking by Tiger Woods
Quick: Name a professional golfer other than Tiger Woods who could still be recognized by people who don’t give a damn about golf?
And that’s exactly why EA Sports isn’t actually sticking by Tiger Woods, they’re stuck with him. Because right now they have two choices: 1) rename and rebrand one of their most popular sports series without a single viable option to take Tiger’s place, or 2) keep as their mascot one of the most epic motherfucking adulterers in human history. And I mean epic. So epic that when I say “motherfucking,” who knows, we may yet find out that’s literal.
In other words it was a choice between bad and really bad, and they went with bad. Then they made Peter Moore write a letter to justify it, because that’s the sort of bullshit monolithic corporations have to do.
Not for nothing, but I’m not surprised EA chose to stick with Tiger. This is the company that still has John Madden’s name on Madden NFL. That was already ridiculous when Madden had only been doing color commentary since 1979, and it’s even stupider now that he’s retired from that.
EA Sports is Probably Reviving NBA Jam
At least I hope this will be a hit, but I honestly don’t see how you could possibly screw this up. As far as I can tell there are only four simple elements to making NBA Jam awesome:
1) Dunks only possible in the Matrix.
2) Lighting basketballs on fire.
3) Shattering glass backboards.
4) Deliriously insane cameos.
If that last one doesn’t make the cut, I won’t blame them. Like the Beastie Boys’ 1989 sample-heavy masterpiece Paul’s Boutique, I’m pretty sure putting Bill Clinton and George Clinton in the same arcade basketball game was the sort of thing you could only get away with back when lawyers weren’t paying attention to crap like that. Those other three, though? You have to try to get them wrong. Hard.
Then again, NBA Jam already mutated once into the garbage NBA Ballers series, so I guess it’s possible to screw anything up. So if your new NBA Jam has me shattering glass basketballs against flaming backboards as secret characters John Madden and Tiger Woods, EA, you and I are going to have words.
Microsoft Announces Interesting but Not Very Exciting ‘Game Room’
And lastly, at the 2010 Consumer Electronic Show earlier this week, Microsoft announced “Game Room,” a kind-of mundane feature no one feels strongly about one way or the other that lets you purchase old coin-op games and arrange them in your virtual arcade.
Games that will be available include such classics as Centipede, Asteroids, and Lunar Lander, which are kind of cool from a nostalgia-inducing perspective but just old enough to still be kind of pointless also. Pricing was set at a disappointing-but-not-quite-outrageous tier of $3-5 to purchase a game, or 50 cents for two one-time plays on any arcade game you don’t own.
Gamer reaction has been expectedly apathetic. “Meh,” said 360 owner Rolfe Stansley. “I mean, I guess it’s neat enough. It’s kind of also stupid, though. Can’t we already play classic arcade games on Xbox Live Arcade? Isn’t that why it’s called Xbox Live Arcade? But whatever, it’s an extra feature.”
“I was a little more excited when I thought I could actually walk around my arcade as my Avatar,” said 360 owner Bill Sanders, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “It would have been just like that movie, Avatar. I even started chain-smoking to simulate it perfectly. Then I found out you couldn’t walk around, it’s just more of a glorified browser. Which doesn’t necessarily make it suck or anything, but, you know. Whatever.”
Experts say that although Game Room hasn’t inspired a lot of enthusiasm from 360 gamers, it also hasn’t made everyone curse Microsoft out either, which is probably the best response they could have possibly hoped for.