It's a chapter in his book "Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter". I would recommend it to anybody looking for some intelligent writing on games on the level of film/literary criticism. The GTA chapter is the only one that I recall focusing much on drugs. The games take center stage, not him like he does in that article.

yeah, I had an older version of OOTP. Its fun, but a bit too stat heavy for me- or at least what I was looking for. I was more interested in just playing out the season as you coudl with la russa back in the day. I don't knwo why they just don't bring back TLR baseball

Interesting, because I thought the details about GTA were by far the least compelling part of that article. In fact, they weren't compelling at all. I skimmed over them and wondered why he included them.

What made the article worth reading, imo, was his exploration of the often awkward relationship between adults and video games. It was one of the most honest, unapologetic pieces I've read in years. Frankly, I couldn't care less about his thoughts on the games themselves.

It's always interesting to hear how different things resonate with different people.

Going to play through Zelda OOT starting today. Saw that it is going to come out on the 3ds, which I don't have, so I figured I would give it a run. I bet I could still get big gorons sword with out having to read a walk-through.

I couldn't even get through Water Temple with a walkthrough I should really go back and beat that game at some point

I hated the water temple and jabu. So worth beating the game if you haven't.

It's amazing that we used to play and beat some Zelda games without walkthroughs at our immediate disposal.

I know wtf. Didn't use a walkthrough until I played Twilight Princess, although I played but never beat windwaker.

Ya but at that time my only concern was doing well enough in school to not get grounded and hanging with friends. Now I have crap to do. Cant spend a whole weekend trying to beat 1 level/boss/whatever in a video game anymore.

I just beat Eternal Sonata after randomly coming back to it (bought it whenever it came out 3-4 years ago). What a weird game. Fun, and gets better towards the end, but the story is pretty goddamn weird and never amounts to making anything resembling sense. It has MGS4-level cutscene lengths too.

So I was browsing the adds that come with my paper today and saw they are selling a Duke Nukem Forever preorder box for 5 Euro (you get the mony discounted fromt the actual game box when you buy it).
At first I thought "that's a cute joke" then I was like "great idea to get a credit" and then I saw there's a release date....world might end before 2012. The day the game will be released is certainly going to be one of the strangest gaming days of my life

The game I beat that I'm most proud of was Castlevania 2 for the NES. It's pretty tough for a kid to beat and I was like 10 at the time. Obviously I got the English version so I sat there with a dictionary translating all texts (that was around the time of my first year of English in school lol).
I had to stop playing and replay it with a break of like 1 year or so to learn more English, so yeah Simon's Quest made me want to learn English lol

"What a horrible night to have a curse" may have been one of the first sentences that I ever translated from a foreign language. Hardcore gaming 4life

think the first game i ever completed was Sonic 2, was pretty pleased about that. dont think i completed another game for about 10 years.

The first game I ever used a strat guide for was the Zelda game for the SNES and FF7/FF9. Now I use online walkthroughs for almost every game (where one is needed) I play....lol I just don't have the patience anymore. To spend multiple days trying to figure out how to get past one area of a game.

The only time I use walkthroughs is when I play a mediocre adventure game but I want to finish it and am stuck for >1 day. Still feels dirty heh

Explain.

First game I ever beat was Ducktales for the NES.

Yea that's my rule now as well. If I'm stuck, I have to wait until the next day. Often you think of something in that time. If not, I can get a hint. I feel like a worthless piece of **** after doing it, and once I open up the floodgates by looking up a hint I'm more likely to just plow through the rest of the game with hints.

As a kid without internet I remember spending weeks on one part of Conquests of Camelot. Restarted the whole game to make sure I hadn't missed anything, etc. Mailed a snail mail letter to Sierra for a hint and got it. I may have spent 20+ hours stuck at that one point, because I played 3+ hours a day and don't remember whether I took days off. Quite possibly spent 50+ hours on that game (adventure games are not supposed to be that long).

Ugh I did the same thing for Breath of Fire 2. Was supposed to climb up some ladder but the graphics were so poor that I never found it. I had to call whatever the Nintentdo hotline was and have them pretty much walk me pixel by pixel to it.

Now I find myself using walkthroughs for games which I don't find particulary challenging but at the same time I feel that I have to finish. This way I make sure I don't miss anything really cool that I'd want to go through another run through for, but I know I'm not missing out on a cool puzzle or anything. I don't think I have ever used a walkthrough for a boss.

I'm rented Castlevania Lord of Shadows and the only time I use the walkthrough is after I finished a few levels and didn't get all the gems I needed I will use a walkthrough to find them. Mainly because I rented it and don't want to be stuck with the game for so long it makes gamefly not worth it.

well there's picking lint out of my belly button, masturbation...... whining about how bad black ops is

yo anybody got turtle beach and can help me?

like i plugged everything and it seems like when im shooting people here like a farting sound.. id like to know how to make em not hear that.. i put the game volume low and high doesnt change anything...

Even though we played it off and on for a couple of years when I was a kid, my dad and I could never beat Super Ghouls N' Ghosts for the SNES. When we finally killed the last boss then found out about the bracelet we were like LOL WTF PANCAKES!?!?!?

Haha def one of the most evil boss fights ever due to what happens once you win. Game was superhard for a buddy of mine and me when we were kids but we recently replayed it and it's actually a lot easier than I thought (still reasonably tough though)

My proudest game finish had to be Rygar because you couldn't save the game and had to beat it in one sitting. And I'm sure my mom turned off the system on me a few times when I went outside and kept it on to get back to once I came back inside.

Yeah, that was seriously a wtf moment and that game is def hard.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a really fast paced shooter type game, similar to unreal tournament? Preferably on the 360, but possibly on the pc if a standard laptop could run it. I remember how awesome it was on the original xbox and miss something that fast paced. I know there's an unreal game out on the 360 but pretty sure no one plays it?