One of the unique problems with games is the tendency for nerds to want to obsessively find a way to label and organize them.  Of all the problems creating obstacles to coming up with fresh ideas and concepts, this incessant need to put something in a group is something that should be innocently nerdy enough, but instead finds its way burrowed into the thick skulls of mouthbreathers hovering over every keystroke in the gayme forum world.  Sure, you can go all the way back to The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, and I imagine well before that, to find plenty of innovative games that could hardly be classified into one simple group, but nonetheless found themselves herded onto the trains labeled "Light Gun Series" and "Adventure Series" sent off to the proverbial concentration camp of late '80s American households and eventually meeting their Xecutioner via the endless trend of angry reviewers that got old in 2006.  

But the most fascinating thing about our herding instinct is that some of the simplifications are either TOO simple or just outright wrong.  Much like with movies, you can quickly and easily take what some local hack or hip counterculture critic writes and take it out of context depending on what you're looking for.  It would be just as easy for me to twist some words around and call Heathers a straight up "comedy" rather than a "dark romantic comedy" or even a "chick flick," for instance.  The most important thing here, however, is to look at just how concrete the folks in the "gamer" community have become lately, like they're some kind of authority on ANYTHING, much less games they haven't even played and yet are FUCKING CERTAIN that they meet the criteria for a given genre.  No matter what cool twists and turns you might find, no matter what level of innovation Xists out there, some assholes decided they had to lump everything into FPS, Sports, Fighting, Beat 'Em Up, RPG, Arcade/Rail Shooter, or Action Adventure, with the occasional Sandbox thrown in there for good measure.  There's a point to this rant, and it's this: fuck you.

Understand that I have favorites in these genres.  You know what my favorite FPS is?  Operation Wolf.  It's a First Person Shooter.

Now, if you're savvy to the world of the gayme reviewer scene, then you're probably more than ready to stop me right there and say "But PG, that's a Rail Shooter!"  You're probably also gayfat.  Before you get all autistic on me and insist that's the case (the Rail Shooter thing, I mean, not the gayfatness, which I KNOW is true), consider this: It's first person.  And it's a shooter.  That makes it a First Person Shooter.  You know what my favorite RPG is?  Fatal Fury.  The second I put my quarter in, I am playing the role of white trash trucker Terry Bogard, and my role is to squeak by my opponents until I reach Geese Howard, who teaches me what it means to be a man when he informs me that he murdered my father and, very shortly thereafter, kicks me throat-first out of his high-rise window to my own death.

The great thing about totally innovative titles is that it just KILLS the folks who want to label and rate the fuckers as soon as they can and as simply as possible.  One prime Xample of this is Grand Theft Auto 3.  There was so much to offer, and in such a different way, that it baffled the masses for a bit. It wasn't until some time later that they managed to come up with "sandbox" as a genre, which is the gayest fucking thing since Liberace's glitter-coateed balloon knot spinning around on some Louisiana Blacksnake.  It was additionally wounding to Nintendo console loyalists since it did so well without the word "Zelda" in the title.  It's not Rockstar's fault that their beloved franchise titles hadn't innovated a fucking thing since the mid-1980s.  It's not Simon's Quest's fault that Konami decided to try something different, only to be vilified as various combinations of curse words that aren't as catchy as "gayfat."

So the next time you come across something that comes across as a fresh idea, whether in a "defined" genre or not, I challenge you to take a quick look at it, give it a shot, and make some fucking effort to think of it as a standalone game in its own world rather than trying to fit it into what is now a soulless, streamlined collection of terms that some fat pseudointellectual asshole thinks he's smart for using in front of his ugly girlfriend, who I'm sure is a moderator at some forum he's joined.

It's that time of year again, folks. The time when I get drunk and critique other people's articles about video games because what the fuck do they know? I'd link to my previous efforts at this, but they were lost somewhere around the third database overhaul, not unlike a child becomes lost at the county fair. That is to say, 100% intentionally on the part of the parents.

So whose dreams will I be shattering this time? None other than prolific writer for the website GamesRadar.com, GamesRadar Staff. Mr Staff has composed a doozey of a shit pile for us to consume, fork and knife in hand, under the guise of the Top 7 ... Best Star Wars games. The ellipses are courtesy of the Staffinator, because they add drama and tension. "Just what could be coming after them?" you ask yourself. "Could it be some sort of chimp-driving automobile?" No! It is the Best Star Wars games! You suddenly find yourself aghast, unsure of whether or not you should still fap to this.

You should, because it's murder porn.

7. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

"How could anyone not love these yellow block-headed guys?" asks the Staff infection. Please, confer with my feet, which are bruised and bloodied from many a LEGO building block left discarded on the floor. I've stepped on those hard-edged motherfuckers so many times that I dare not even call the appendages attached at the bottom of my legs "feet" anymore. They are stubs. I look like a goddamn war amp, and who's going to give me a pension so that I can get my crippled ass off the street? George Lucas? Fuck that guy. I won't take any of his damned blood money.

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The following is an actual, real e-mail I sent to Square Enix a while back.

To whom it may concern:

I don't know whether you'll think this is relevant to your interests, or if it will make an impact on future sales, but let me make one thing clear: I am a drinker.  I don't think I fit into the alcoholic category, primarily because I don't go to AA meetings.  I'm not one of those bar-hopping party animals who drinks a dozen beers and lets out a high-pitched, gravel-throated "WOOOOOOOOOOOO!" then intentionally bumps into the nearest co-ed with the ill-strategized intention of fucking her.  I mostly enjoy the fine taste of malt liquor and/or hard 80-150 proof bourbon, or a mixture of several brands and types of strong booze like the Obituary, Screaming Viking, or the little-known Q*Bert.  The important thing to know is that such liquor makes me not necessarily drunk and unable to use machinery at this point, but almost always angry, abusive and stubborn.  For example, the other night I told my girl "NO I WILL NOT SHUT UP YOU SHUT UP I DON'T HAVE TO DO SHIT BITCH YOU TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT!" and consequently played Final Fantasy while she went to sleep.  I gained ten levels that night.

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I know that you, sweet reader, have already heard about Nintendo reducing the cost of its 3DS system by $80 mere months after its launch. At half-past-eight o'clock in the evening of the same day I'm not going to pretend that this is news anymore, so I'll offer my unique thoughts on the matter instead. Don't act like you're uninterested in my opinion because why else would you be here if you weren't? Oh, you're a fan of Psycho Gorilla? Damn it, that's what they all say! All right, you're excused for this lesson.

To the four of you who have stayed, I ask what does such a drastic reduction in the 3DS's price so soon after its launch actually mean? For one thing, it means that Nintendo needs to start supporting its hardware with real games because this bullshit has been going on for a while. During the pre-launch discussions of the GameCube, a Nintendo representative stated that the company expected to provide 60-80 per cent of the system's titles (GameSpot). Now, we all remember the GameCube: it was a reliable little system with some great games, but not a lot of games. You may say that quality matters over quantity, but quantity ensures that there's at least something for everyone. If you prefer first-person shooters or RPGs over action-adventure games and platformers, the GameCube wasn't your system. And it wasn't the system for a lot of people, apparently, because it was the worst-selling console of its generation (unless you count the Dreamcast, but only hipsters still insist on doing that).

This kind of hipster.

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You may be aware that MDK2 has been ported to WiiWare for 1000 Wii Points (~$10). You may not be aware, however, that this is a shitty investment.

For starters, the game is available on GOG.com for $5.99. Now, I’m no Asian, but I’m fairly certain that five is less than ten. Also, games purchased from GOG.com don’t include any DRM, which means that you can copy the game files and install them as many times and on as many computers as you’d like. WiiWare games, on the other hand, are limited to the system they’re purchased on.

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Earlier this month, my older brother and I successfully stole liquor from an in-law in Chicago that we don’t like and had verbalized just how much we’d like to take turns holding him while the other headbutts him in the nose in that very same trip. Then we would urinate on his fucking couch. While that part unfortunately never got to happen, we DID manage to take 4 bottles of Jameson Irish whiskey from his liquor cabinet in the middle of the night, stuff them in our bags, and drink them when we got back home. Between the two of us, they were all gone within a 24-hour period.

The point of that story is that Nintendo is at fault for my perception of justice for not putting Rush’n Attack on the VC.

And while I can live with the NES version not being there, since I’ve played it to death, and still do on my actual NES console (see PlayTheNES.com for more details on just how great that game is), the arcade game has still not managed to make it onto many (if any) respectable bigscreen services or compilations. Damn shame, because it’s among the manliest and toughest sidescrollers ever created. It makes beating the NES version look like beating Wii Fit. I won’t bother getting into specifics, but just trust me when I tell you it’s better than sex with at least 67 percent of the population. You can find it on the DS, but good luck squinting and surviving at the same time. In the meantime, you can play it on MAME or on a burned MAME4ALL Dreamcast disc. Go do that to prove you’re not a filthy communist sympathizer and giving me one good reason not to strangle you in your hotel room like Bobby Nguyen did to Vinh in Gleaming the Cube. It’s still not on VC.

I want to take a brief moment to point out, step by tentative step, just how bad the big boys are fucking up something that exists for free, taking the time not only to CHARGE MONEY FOR IT, which I’ve bitched about already, but also to do it worse than it already exists for free. This is a lot like if you get a free pass to a fun waterpark through some cool promotional deal while some other entity attempts to entice you with $1 off a $60 steak that tastes like rubber and gives you food poisoning.

In other words, you know how PC emulation has brought countless obscure classics to you for years and years? Well, when this console generation came about, they decided to advertise the prospect of "downloadable games" to the non-Internet-savvy public. The result is a half-assed attempt at cataloging a game library by people who don’t know how to read or put things in order. You might think that maybe a friendly suggestion to the folks at Nintendo via e-mail might get more done more efficiently. But if you’re like me, you’re a cynic, and you know that’ll never happen, so instead, I’ve decided to bitch about it on the Internet.

Today’s bitching concerns Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder.

The "true" sequel to the Sega classic had moderate success in arcades while two relatively run-of-the-mill and, dare I say, BORING carbon-copy sequels were released on the Genesis. It never had a home release despite being vastly superior to GAII and GAIII in every way. Seems like the perfect game for emulation. And it is. Go find it and play it on MAME right now. It’s still not on VC.