It’s 1993. I’m playing on my NES. I’m about to fight Bowser at the end of Super Mario Bros. It’s time for dinner, however, and my dad has called into the living room probably five or six times. I don’t want to eat because I’m about to finally save Princess Toadstool, but I’m seven and I have no choice so I put it on pause.

When I come back, after eating and doing the dishes, my console’s turned off. I stare in horror at my dad who is now watching television. And because the original game didn’t let you save due to technological limitations, I find myself back at the first level when I finally turn the console back on. There are eight more worlds left to go and I will never get close to the end again.

Games have been flirting with their portrayal of failure and game overs for years–they’ve been dodging the subject of death for even longer. Arguments have been made for and against severe consequences in the digital world for over two decades. Each game treats the topic differently. Some don’t let you save often if ever, others put a checkpoint around every bend. Sometimes, a game over screen means starting from the beginning while other times it just means restarting from an earlier level. And, in the case of Super Mario Bros., saving and thus restarting without penalty wasn’t possible until later titles in the series–the game over screen was permanent, whether it was reached by personal failure or an external error. When Mario failed, it was all over.

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Back in the start of World of Warcraft, several years ago, I knew a guy who knew a guy. He was a forum warrior of sorts. He posted inflammatory stuff all day and night. One day, a group of people decided to reign him in and right the wrongs he’d besieged the community with. Long hours spent with search engines occurred and eventually a real life name was found. A few weeks later, a bouquet of roses and a dildo was sent to his door in care of his mother.

With the tables turned, the forum warrior was discovered to be just a helpless boy. He didn’t have an actual shield or sword like the name forum warrior implied. And his mother wasn’t very happy about the whole situation. The troll became trolled–and the realm of the internet carried over somewhat viciously into the real world.

Blizzard wrote today that with their new Real ID system, they hope to “connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before.” They plan on doing this by tying real life names to all forum posts from here on out.

I, however, posit that the community has been connecting in these ways for years–Blizzard is just naively unaware. And this is a very bad thing.

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I played Uncharted 1 & 2 in the span of a week. It may have been the shortest amount of time I’ve taken to play two games and it’s because I never wanted to leave. This was surprising, even to me, because I arrived at the games with very low expectations.

My low expectations were tempered by my dislike of the Tomb Raider series. The original Tomb Raiders failed to capture my interest due to the clumsy, and frustrating control scheme, and the latter entries seemed a little too adolescent in terms of story and character design for me to really get into.

I was expecting Uncharted to be like Lara Croft with a male protagonist.

It wasn’t.

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This is to thank General Knoxx, Scooter, and Mr. Shank for their hilarious monologues. This is to acknowledge that I want my own Claptrap, who dances at random and gets stuck to giant ceiling magnets at the most inopportune times. This is to say that Borderlands’ Pandora is one of the most unique gaming worlds created in the past decade.

This is a love letter to Borderlands and its downloadable content. It’s almost a year late, but my love is strong enough that I know no shame.

And make no mistake–it’s got some tough love in it as well, because sometimes we are prone to be exceedingly critical of what we adore the most.

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I won’t be playing Alan Wake for the XBox 360 any time soon. When my 360 died at the beginning of this month, I was given the choice of either paying to repair it or buying a new console. I chose the new console option, figuring it was time for an upgrade, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to get a PlayStation 3 or stick with the XBox 360. I debated both choices for a few days because I like Microsoft and I like Sony equally; I support whatever gets me the most titles and the best experience. And while I believe both consoles do these things equally, I’d heard very good things about Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series and had yet to experience either, so I purchased a PS3.

I don’t regret my purchase, although I do regret being unable to play Alan Wake.

But more on that later.

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