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We've come a long way over the last 30 years. Gamers have gone from geeks, to nerds, to social outcasts, to hobbyists, and finally within the last 24 hours or so we've hit the jackpot. Gaming is now a respectable past-time. Gamers are now... 'consumers'. Being a trend-setting consumer at the sharp end of a 10 billion dollar a year industry carries with it some awesome responsibilites, and being cool is just one of them.
But now, with the aid of FM's Definitive Guide to Cool Gaming, you can rest assured that being cool is going to be the least of your problems.
What Is Cool?
-------------
Cool is:
Having a game in your collection that noone else has ever heard of and yet which is quite good. When other people finally play it, they say "Wow, I've never heard of this game and yet it's quite good!"
Maintaining a healthy all year round tan whilst being a gamer is cool. I recommend the Regency 8-Tube fitted with Phillips UVA tubes and integral fan-cooled base.
Being able to dislocate voluntarily any joint between your elbow and your fingertip of either arm in order to further enhance your already perfect platforming skills.
Achieving a Gold award in any of Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec's licence challenges whilst munching through 1/3rd of a tube of Cheese and Onion flavoured Pringles, without getting crumbs on your jumper.
Knowing by instinct which of your memory cards contain which of your game saves without having to go through the memory management facility of your console to hunt them down.
Owning any game which has a box cover signed by either Hideo Kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto.
Being within an arm's length of snacks, soft drinks, and a joypad no matter where in your room you are chilling, out without having to pay a Feng Shui consultant to arrange it for you.
Convincing your parents that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is, in fact, a landmark videogame in that it pushes the envelopes of artistic expression and revolutionary gaming, that censorship of art is a paradox in that art imitates life and therefore cannot be censored, that in society denying you this artwork you are stifling not only your own natural growth but your one true freedom of expression in this cruel and heartless, violent world, and actually managing to get them to buy it for you despite it being 18-rated and you being under 18 years old.
What is NOT Cool?
-----------------
Getting caught with a copy of any Barbie, Lego or 3DO game in your collection. I would advise that should you own any of these, you buy a secure safety box in which to store them, preferably one with a 16-sequence combination lock. The amount of credibility you'd lose in the eyes of fellow gamers should you get caught with any of these in your posession is immeasurable.
Stripping the cover off your console in the hope of maintaining an all year round tan through exposure to the Class 1 Laser product contained within. This is pure geekness, and we're beyond that now.
Breaking your opponents arm whilst playing any competitive two-player game because they're beating you.
Setting fire to your jumper with cigarette ash because you forgot to remove the cigarette from your mouth during an endurance race.
Storing your game save files alphabetically, numerically, by high score, or any other sort of order on your memory cards. By default, actually labelling your memory cards with game save file names to help you remember where they are is nerdy.
Owning any copy of the Mech Warrior series which has a box cover signed by Bill Gates.
Constantly having to unravel your joypad cables, headphone cables, speaker leads and G-Con-45 cables because your gaming area is a tip. Having to press pause in order to eat a snack or sip a drink is also a no no. Rocking chairs went out of fashion with your Grandad, although leather and steel is still in fashion in a retro-gamer chic kind of way.
Getting caught shoplifting a copy of BMX XXX at your local indie store at 4:30pm after school when the shop is full of your mates and their girl friends.
Next Week:
FM's Definitive Guide to State Sponsored Gaming.
But now, with the aid of FM's Definitive Guide to Cool Gaming, you can rest assured that being cool is going to be the least of your problems.
What Is Cool?
-------------
Cool is:
Having a game in your collection that noone else has ever heard of and yet which is quite good. When other people finally play it, they say "Wow, I've never heard of this game and yet it's quite good!"
Maintaining a healthy all year round tan whilst being a gamer is cool. I recommend the Regency 8-Tube fitted with Phillips UVA tubes and integral fan-cooled base.
Being able to dislocate voluntarily any joint between your elbow and your fingertip of either arm in order to further enhance your already perfect platforming skills.
Achieving a Gold award in any of Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec's licence challenges whilst munching through 1/3rd of a tube of Cheese and Onion flavoured Pringles, without getting crumbs on your jumper.
Knowing by instinct which of your memory cards contain which of your game saves without having to go through the memory management facility of your console to hunt them down.
Owning any game which has a box cover signed by either Hideo Kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto.
Being within an arm's length of snacks, soft drinks, and a joypad no matter where in your room you are chilling, out without having to pay a Feng Shui consultant to arrange it for you.
Convincing your parents that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is, in fact, a landmark videogame in that it pushes the envelopes of artistic expression and revolutionary gaming, that censorship of art is a paradox in that art imitates life and therefore cannot be censored, that in society denying you this artwork you are stifling not only your own natural growth but your one true freedom of expression in this cruel and heartless, violent world, and actually managing to get them to buy it for you despite it being 18-rated and you being under 18 years old.
What is NOT Cool?
-----------------
Getting caught with a copy of any Barbie, Lego or 3DO game in your collection. I would advise that should you own any of these, you buy a secure safety box in which to store them, preferably one with a 16-sequence combination lock. The amount of credibility you'd lose in the eyes of fellow gamers should you get caught with any of these in your posession is immeasurable.
Stripping the cover off your console in the hope of maintaining an all year round tan through exposure to the Class 1 Laser product contained within. This is pure geekness, and we're beyond that now.
Breaking your opponents arm whilst playing any competitive two-player game because they're beating you.
Setting fire to your jumper with cigarette ash because you forgot to remove the cigarette from your mouth during an endurance race.
Storing your game save files alphabetically, numerically, by high score, or any other sort of order on your memory cards. By default, actually labelling your memory cards with game save file names to help you remember where they are is nerdy.
Owning any copy of the Mech Warrior series which has a box cover signed by Bill Gates.
Constantly having to unravel your joypad cables, headphone cables, speaker leads and G-Con-45 cables because your gaming area is a tip. Having to press pause in order to eat a snack or sip a drink is also a no no. Rocking chairs went out of fashion with your Grandad, although leather and steel is still in fashion in a retro-gamer chic kind of way.
Getting caught shoplifting a copy of BMX XXX at your local indie store at 4:30pm after school when the shop is full of your mates and their girl friends.
Next Week:
FM's Definitive Guide to State Sponsored Gaming.
FantasyMeister wrote:
> Stripping the cover off your console in the hope of maintaining an all
> year round tan through exposure to the Class 1 Laser product contained
> within. This is pure geekness, and we're beyond that now.
What!? NOOO!!!!! I'll have to put up the class 3 laser above my bed now for that TAN
> Stripping the cover off your console in the hope of maintaining an all
> year round tan through exposure to the Class 1 Laser product contained
> within. This is pure geekness, and we're beyond that now.
What!? NOOO!!!!! I'll have to put up the class 3 laser above my bed now for that TAN
Does gaming cool count as Va-Va-Voom? Good post!
We've come a long way over the last 30 years. Gamers have gone from geeks, to nerds, to social outcasts, to hobbyists, and finally within the last 24 hours or so we've hit the jackpot. Gaming is now a respectable past-time. Gamers are now... 'consumers'. Being a trend-setting consumer at the sharp end of a 10 billion dollar a year industry carries with it some awesome responsibilites, and being cool is just one of them.
But now, with the aid of FM's Definitive Guide to Cool Gaming, you can rest assured that being cool is going to be the least of your problems.
What Is Cool?
-------------
Cool is:
Having a game in your collection that noone else has ever heard of and yet which is quite good. When other people finally play it, they say "Wow, I've never heard of this game and yet it's quite good!"
Maintaining a healthy all year round tan whilst being a gamer is cool. I recommend the Regency 8-Tube fitted with Phillips UVA tubes and integral fan-cooled base.
Being able to dislocate voluntarily any joint between your elbow and your fingertip of either arm in order to further enhance your already perfect platforming skills.
Achieving a Gold award in any of Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec's licence challenges whilst munching through 1/3rd of a tube of Cheese and Onion flavoured Pringles, without getting crumbs on your jumper.
Knowing by instinct which of your memory cards contain which of your game saves without having to go through the memory management facility of your console to hunt them down.
Owning any game which has a box cover signed by either Hideo Kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto.
Being within an arm's length of snacks, soft drinks, and a joypad no matter where in your room you are chilling, out without having to pay a Feng Shui consultant to arrange it for you.
Convincing your parents that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is, in fact, a landmark videogame in that it pushes the envelopes of artistic expression and revolutionary gaming, that censorship of art is a paradox in that art imitates life and therefore cannot be censored, that in society denying you this artwork you are stifling not only your own natural growth but your one true freedom of expression in this cruel and heartless, violent world, and actually managing to get them to buy it for you despite it being 18-rated and you being under 18 years old.
What is NOT Cool?
-----------------
Getting caught with a copy of any Barbie, Lego or 3DO game in your collection. I would advise that should you own any of these, you buy a secure safety box in which to store them, preferably one with a 16-sequence combination lock. The amount of credibility you'd lose in the eyes of fellow gamers should you get caught with any of these in your posession is immeasurable.
Stripping the cover off your console in the hope of maintaining an all year round tan through exposure to the Class 1 Laser product contained within. This is pure geekness, and we're beyond that now.
Breaking your opponents arm whilst playing any competitive two-player game because they're beating you.
Setting fire to your jumper with cigarette ash because you forgot to remove the cigarette from your mouth during an endurance race.
Storing your game save files alphabetically, numerically, by high score, or any other sort of order on your memory cards. By default, actually labelling your memory cards with game save file names to help you remember where they are is nerdy.
Owning any copy of the Mech Warrior series which has a box cover signed by Bill Gates.
Constantly having to unravel your joypad cables, headphone cables, speaker leads and G-Con-45 cables because your gaming area is a tip. Having to press pause in order to eat a snack or sip a drink is also a no no. Rocking chairs went out of fashion with your Grandad, although leather and steel is still in fashion in a retro-gamer chic kind of way.
Getting caught shoplifting a copy of BMX XXX at your local indie store at 4:30pm after school when the shop is full of your mates and their girl friends.
Next Week:
FM's Definitive Guide to State Sponsored Gaming.
But now, with the aid of FM's Definitive Guide to Cool Gaming, you can rest assured that being cool is going to be the least of your problems.
What Is Cool?
-------------
Cool is:
Having a game in your collection that noone else has ever heard of and yet which is quite good. When other people finally play it, they say "Wow, I've never heard of this game and yet it's quite good!"
Maintaining a healthy all year round tan whilst being a gamer is cool. I recommend the Regency 8-Tube fitted with Phillips UVA tubes and integral fan-cooled base.
Being able to dislocate voluntarily any joint between your elbow and your fingertip of either arm in order to further enhance your already perfect platforming skills.
Achieving a Gold award in any of Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec's licence challenges whilst munching through 1/3rd of a tube of Cheese and Onion flavoured Pringles, without getting crumbs on your jumper.
Knowing by instinct which of your memory cards contain which of your game saves without having to go through the memory management facility of your console to hunt them down.
Owning any game which has a box cover signed by either Hideo Kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto.
Being within an arm's length of snacks, soft drinks, and a joypad no matter where in your room you are chilling, out without having to pay a Feng Shui consultant to arrange it for you.
Convincing your parents that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is, in fact, a landmark videogame in that it pushes the envelopes of artistic expression and revolutionary gaming, that censorship of art is a paradox in that art imitates life and therefore cannot be censored, that in society denying you this artwork you are stifling not only your own natural growth but your one true freedom of expression in this cruel and heartless, violent world, and actually managing to get them to buy it for you despite it being 18-rated and you being under 18 years old.
What is NOT Cool?
-----------------
Getting caught with a copy of any Barbie, Lego or 3DO game in your collection. I would advise that should you own any of these, you buy a secure safety box in which to store them, preferably one with a 16-sequence combination lock. The amount of credibility you'd lose in the eyes of fellow gamers should you get caught with any of these in your posession is immeasurable.
Stripping the cover off your console in the hope of maintaining an all year round tan through exposure to the Class 1 Laser product contained within. This is pure geekness, and we're beyond that now.
Breaking your opponents arm whilst playing any competitive two-player game because they're beating you.
Setting fire to your jumper with cigarette ash because you forgot to remove the cigarette from your mouth during an endurance race.
Storing your game save files alphabetically, numerically, by high score, or any other sort of order on your memory cards. By default, actually labelling your memory cards with game save file names to help you remember where they are is nerdy.
Owning any copy of the Mech Warrior series which has a box cover signed by Bill Gates.
Constantly having to unravel your joypad cables, headphone cables, speaker leads and G-Con-45 cables because your gaming area is a tip. Having to press pause in order to eat a snack or sip a drink is also a no no. Rocking chairs went out of fashion with your Grandad, although leather and steel is still in fashion in a retro-gamer chic kind of way.
Getting caught shoplifting a copy of BMX XXX at your local indie store at 4:30pm after school when the shop is full of your mates and their girl friends.
Next Week:
FM's Definitive Guide to State Sponsored Gaming.