Cake-Pie

These are boring, so I’ll stay cool.

There will be some neat things added soon to Cake-Pie!

• Thing #1: Guest posting! Other people besides Me will be posting! So be sure to check the author before sending your hate mail ^_^
• Thing #2: Reviews! Chances are these will be vintage games, but watch out because you don’t know what the fuck we’re going to do! Wacky!
• Cat-In-The-Hat: Interviews!! I’m already talking with cool people who might be neat to hear about. Answers to questions will ensue!!

Hopefully you fuckers like the changes! They will be beyond awesome–nay! They will be: The. Best. Changes. Ever. (At least until the changes after those.)

Ladies, we all know how much sexier Zachary Quinto is playing Spock in the new Star Trek movie than creepy mother-fucker Sylar on Heroes. There’s a reason: Spock is far more datable than Sylar. That much is obvious. But how datable is Spock himself? I explore this strange, new concept through anecdote and my own clever deductions.

Now I had to look it up, but I remember the episode where Spock was captured by Nazis and tortured for information about the Enterprise shirtless. I know it was like a million years ago when that episode was filmed (or technically, hundreds of years in the future), but Spock was showing off his man-pecs effectively enough to ensure his hottie status. The episode is called “Patterns of Force” from the original series if you want to see what I mean. No manscaping back then, but he looks better than Kirk–who is shirtless in like 20% of Star Trek episodes. He also looks better than Will Riker from The Next Generation. Suck it, Will Riker.

Next: Spock’s sensitive! I know you’re about to argue me on this because “Blah, blah, Vulcans hate emotions, blah, blah”, but we all know how happy he was when he was infected with Omicron Spores and got to live in  paradise and even confessed his love  to the botanist chicky during this time–before Kirk (who was unaffected) ruined it for everyone. This episode is called “This Side of Paradise” because it was.

Before that Spock expressed something like actual joy when his betrothed skank T’Pring made him and Kirk fight to the death while Spock was all plak tow-ed. Spock thought he killed Kirk only to find it was a ruse that Kirk and McCoy planned in order to save the captain. He was all “JIM!!!” and stuff. That’s Vulcan for “Holy shit, man! I’m filled with delight”.

He also plays the Vulcan Lute. Chicks love musicians.

Girls also love witty quips  from emotionally unavailable guys, so there you have two full demographics of female wants completely covered with Spock. Girls who want innocent, sensitive men; and psychos who want emotionally unavailable smartasses.

He lives a lot longer and healthier than normal men, since he’s half-Vulcan, and if you can keep him in the spores, he’s pretty much the nicest, smartest guy ever.

He’d be totally datable and he’s very loyal–as exhibited on the Enterprise in probably 70% of episodes. He’s unlikely to cheat (except for cheating death) because he doesn’t lie. And chances are high that he doesn’t have the herpes.

I have to down-rate him for his completely ridiculous adoration for both Star Fleet and Captain Kirk. You should always come first, ladies, no matter if he’s in his pon farr or not. There’s also the chance that he’s more into guys than girls. Good news for military gays!! This makes him way more datable to you. Bad news for creatures with vaginas that are NOT Captain Kirk.

Points off for his potential crush on Kirk, his obsession with Star Fleet over anything ever, and his 7-year wait for pon farr. Of course, if you can just hit him with spores, none of that will matter! He’ll be happy too, so you don’t have to feel like a poisoning psycho bitch. About his time infected he later reflects that this was the first time in his life at which he had felt happy.

Overall, I’d give Mr. Spock 4 Cake-Pies out of 5 for datability. Did I mention Vulcans have two sets of eyelids? Well, they do.

So people tell me all the time that I have anger issues. Overall, the unwashed masses aren’t very observant about things outside themselves, so I ignore them. This is the right thing to do, and here’s why: They tell me this because I swear at screens and not people–clearly they can’t seem to tell the difference.

As far as I can tell, no one has deliberately made an Anger Quest game or Fuck You, Your Character Dies adventure; but sometimes it feels that way. REAL gamers just play their games, and continue to do it until the yelling sounds like this: “Fuck you Game! How did you like that? That’s me winning.”

Most of the noise I make is when I school my AI opponents. It tends to be loud, sometimes really racist (“Dwarves are stupid”), and often occurs when I’m in a hurry to collect phat l00t and some NPC is jibber-jabbering at me. I’m just saying what you’re thinking, only out loud: “Shut the fuck up. Nobody cares. Where’s my goddamned gold? Sweet! Now I can breathe underwater!”

Unfortunately, fighting games make me look like a wife beater. Which says a lot, since I’m a woman. Sometimes people give me shifty-eyes for days when they play a fighting game with me. Especially Soul Calibur IV. Everyone talks a little trash now and then, and if you don’t, it’s because you’re undead. Nobody cares about you.

What happens to many of us, though, is we relax, forget that gaming is Vital to our self-worth, and we are polite when playing with our friends. What happens to me is that I never forget. You hit me with Astaroth’s stupid fucking axe in that annoying circular swipe move? Well, regard that as your moment because soon I’ll be Kancho-ing you with Xianghua’s Tai Chi sword like it’s Christmas for weird people. I’ll really enjoy it. If you’re kicking my ass (as if) I’ll remain silent until it’s my turn.

Here’s the part where I really sell you on this not being about anger: I swear at screens when no one else is around. I swear playing single-player games. I swear when I’m winning. I swear when I play Katamari Damacy.

People with anger issues get all fussy and  throw their $50 controllers at their $800 TV’s because they missed a jump and now they have to go all the way around just to try again. Again. They get pissed off when you beat them over and over in Mortal Kombat, they also call all your moves cheap. They refuse to EVER play Counter-Strike again because of “Fucking Campers”, ie: because they lost.

I can be guilty of videogaming extroversion. Maybe you’re just like me. You know, talking to NPC’s like they’re real, crying when the ones you like die, and tossing one-liner insults at the ones you don’t like as if they can hear it.

Highly delusional. But just happy as a clam.

Not everyone is a gamer. Let’s just start there. But for some reason we still feel the need to categorize THE GAMER. Perhaps it’s because many of us have been trained from a young age by these games to level ourselves up, and one way to do this is to promote our own hard-coreness, and demote your old-school-ity. Suck it, n00b!

Nonetheless, we do push typing. In 2006 money was actually spent in market research to “type” gamers by the Park Associates. They decided game purchasers fell into six categories: Power Gamers, Social Gamers, Leisure Gamers, Dormant Gamers, Incidental Gamers, and Occasional Gamers. Of course, this research was done via an online poll, so no matter how you slice it you’re more likely to get game data that represents a different group than, say, people who do not spend time gaming online. I’m sure they did a lot of very professional surveys, really science-y and all. But of the 2000 or so people they managed to tally data from, human beings still deciphered the results.

Guess what, punks? I’ve logged many, many hours at GameStop. I’ve observed some gamers, and obviously I know some gamers. My typing is wise and powerful. Suck it, n00bs!

• Type A: “The Biggest Hits Gamer”. This gamer shows up on release date and wants the new game. Not that fucking movie-licensed game! “No, I don’t want to wait one extra day I’m playing this shit right now.” They smoke games for breakfast. Owns: PS3, Xbox 360, Metal Gear Solid 4, Madden 2010, and a High-definition TV with the right fucking cables.

• Type B: “I buy the Best”. Yeah they do. And they buy it in the plastic. Gamers of this type are identified by their random buys from nearly any platform. They want whatever has been rated highly, or whatever is over $100 on eBay. If you ask them what their favorite games are, they annoyingly have articulate things to say about all of them. Owns: PC, PS2, Suikoden 2, Portal, Okami, and some rare shit from Japan. Ask them. I bet they play imports.

• Type C: “HOLY SHIT!”. I know. Not much help? Well this gamer buys games that have pictures of their heroes on the cover. They meander in when they happen to be in the mall, or they have money burning a hole in their pocket. It occurs to them to buy a game usually on a whim, or if The New Movie came out and advertised that it made a game too. Owns: Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, Naruto games, Dragon Ball Z, NBA Live, and probably the newest movie-licensed game.

• Type D: “Has the Price Dropped?”. This gamer type usually gets lumped in the casual groups. They’re the most likely to beat any game they buy, because they’d really like to trade it back in and get new games while they still can. You see something under $10 with a cool cover? Hell’s yeah. I think these guys are pretty smart, because honestly, some of those games are fantastic. Owns: PS2, GBA, rotating selection of games like Max Payne, Oni, Metroid Fusion, and some WWE game.

• Type E: “I Only Play With Friends”. This type used to be a LOT more common when there were thousands of MMOs to play. This gamer wants the co-op games, the MMOs, and the music games. Naturally, there are sub-groups to this type! There is “The WoW Player”–they own World of Warcraft and a computer. Anything else they own was bought in The Beforetime. Then there’s “The Co-Oper”–they own a Wii, Xbox 360, Lego Star Wars, Left 4 Dead, or like, Army of Two. You also have your “Music/DDR Player”. This group used to include the kids at the arcade who could do Max 300 on Expert without the bar. They own a Wii, Gamecube, Xbox 360 OR PS3, and probably Rock Band–they also bought songs for it.

• Type F: “I Don’t Play Well With Others”. Again, this type has sub-grouping. You have your “Fraggers”, they own all of Call of Duty, Half-life, or Halo. They always have a favorite. They will fucking bury you. They probably even unlocked all those stupid ranks in America’s Army. The next type: “Pwners”, plays Warcraft 3, Starcraft, and/or Diablo 2. Still. The last group, “I am Undefined”, you don’t see often, they’re not in those fucking surveys. Their school is old, their core is hard. They own original systems like Atari, NES, and possibly even a NEO GEO. And they didn’t buy it at a yard sale like you did. They just kept it from when it came out. Usually though, these are PC gamers. They got into games to get away from people. Maybe they’re awkward, or maybe people don’t interest them. For whatever reason, they own a lot of the same games the rest of us buy, as long as it’s not fucking online, or requires goddamn friends to come over. They DO NOT own Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, they will never play WoW, and you probably don’t want to ask them how many hours they’ve logged in Civilizations, Legend of Zelda, or X-COM.

Overall, it’s less about what specific games people play. Many people ultimately own a lot of the same exact games despite being different gamer types. People are typically motivated by what they want, so the people these types represent are just that. Wants! You may find elite and casual gamers spanning throughout many of these categories. What type are you?

I’m going to have a hard time writing this particular entry without including as many Godfather, Goodfellas, and Sopranos quotes as I know. Bonus points to you if you get the references after I’m done bastardizing them with Mafia Wars Sorority Life.

You read that right. And if you know anything about Facebook, you know yourself some Mafia Wars! But did you know there’s a similar game suited more appropriately for les femmes? Yus! You’ve probably seen their ads on Facebook and said to yourself: “No. Fucking. Way.” Well I am now House Mother of a growing Sorority Life family Sisterhood.

And for you, my audience, it doesn’t have to be my daughter’s wedding day for me to take the bullet, try this game, and then report back. I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see.

I’ve had a morbid curiosity with these Facebook apps ever since My Heroes Ability, which is a game that gives you superpowers that you use on your friends, enemies, and random mobs. It’s free to play, at the time it was pretty addictive (not too many great apps on Facebook back then) and you can, like, paint the future and stuff.

I’d made a specialty out of knowing my free MMO’s back in my Computer Games Magazine days, and naturally in my search I stumbled upon a lot of regular ole Flash games–some of them were very innovative. Even so, Facebook has some really great applications that trump a lot of the free MMO-style games on the web both then and now.

I love the instant gratification I get from playing on Facebook, how I can coerce certain male players into joining my Sorority House Cake PI (seriously awesome name for a sorority house.) I even created a Facebook group for my Sisters to meet up–and it has a Code of Conduct!

It’s like I’m a real House Mother, except that I’d probably be trying to have LESS women in my house than trying to have as many sisters as possible. So far it’s been fun! I’m a multi-millionaire, I have like two jets, two Escalades, a yacht, and probably hundreds of shoes. The best part? No extra carbon footprint! It’s like all the benefits of hoarding expensive goods without any drawbacks!

I don’t even pay for storage. Although I do pay upkeep costs.

Overall I never really dug Mafia Wars. It wasn’t because you had to friend hundreds of strangers to improve you chances of moving up the ladder. You do that in Sorority Life too. I guess I just don’t like violence. I’m a businesswoman. Blood is a big expense. I much prefer to spend my money on fabulous dresses, accessories, and hairstyles.

So join me in my evil ways. Be a part of my Sorority House Group Cake PI on facebook. You should be able to find me and friend me with “SL” in your message for a friend request.

Just don’t ever take sides with anyone against the House again. Ever.

It has recently come to my attention that the game magazine I used to work for (which is now sadly dead) is not buried, but somewhat zombie-like.

As you may know from reading my About page I used to be on staff at Computer Games Magazine, and when we launched our new gaming magazine MASSIVE (which turned into MMO Games due to another magazine named massive) I followed there as well. It was really awesome for every reason you can think of. I even got this free chair which everyone insists is a sex chair (but is clearly NOT). Bottom line: E3, Games, NON-sex chair, Meeting EVERYONE. It was sweet like pocky.

It all ended when CGM’s publisher got into trouble for spamming with another project completely unrelated to CGM or MMO Games Magazine. So you can imagine how sad we all were when we were told that the publisher lost the lawsuit, everyone had to leave, and the magazines were gone forever. I really did <3 CGM and the different voice we had in the game world. We had the largest female readership, and we had possibly the smartest reader’s letters.

I got all nostalgic and Googled: “computer games magazine” articles (then added) “tiffany martin” in the hopes that someone out there remembered. Someone out there still believed. Someone out there had copied articles onto their website illegally and I could still read them. Instead, I found two very unusual things: archives at our old website www.cgonline.com, and Troy S. Goodfellow.

Troy and I used to both write for CGM and I was just tickled to see he was blogging out there somewhere. Check out his site at www.flashofsteel.com and if you’re a strategy gamer you can listen to his podcast Three Moves Ahead with actor Tom Chick who was Oscar’s boyfriend in The Office (he does other stuff, too, or so I hear), Julian Murdoch, and Bruce Geryk–another old CGM-er.

It’s really nice to scroll through old articles and remember some good times, shitty games I had to review, and great E3 interviews. I also recall the time I scammed my way into the behind-closed-doors area of the Nintendo booth at one E3. Or the time a Russian Developer gave me a bottle of Vodka–I shit you not.

It was the best of times, and it really was. Working right near home, and traveling far, far away. Who could want for more?