I returned from this vegetarian restaurant downtown today after having eaten a meal that looked vaguely like something that fell out of a horse. I remember feeling disappointed at my inability to find pleasure in the “cool” things in life. Things like the trendy vegetarian restaurant downtown. Discouraged, I decided to fire up the Bioshock demo that was released on PSN recently as my first play through had been cut short and I was looking forward to finishing it. Ideally it would allay any concerns I may have had about always being “that guy” that bucks the popular trend just to be different. I bloody hate that guy.

If there’s one thing this game lacks, it’s an overabundance of conveniently placed explosive tanks…oh wait.

Luckily it worked. The demo is amazing, I haven’t fired up a game that felt so epic since Oblivion came out around 2 years ago. When I got that first look at Rapture as the elevator descended on the city I felt completely giddy. Like when I was a little kid and I tried TMNT for the NES for the first time. The demo started on a high point, held my attention to the end and left me wanting more.

Elated at finally having had the chance to try the game everyone’s been talking about for over a year now and looking to share my impressions and get some feedback from my fellow gamers, I headed online. Then I came across this.

Ripten: Bioshock Apparently Looks Bioshitty

…and this.

Giant Bomb: Oh Snap! (Bioshock Screen Comparison)

…and this.

Voodoo Extreme: Bioshock PS3 Graphics All Kinds of Broken

…and the list goes on and on and on. It extends to just about every major (and minor) gaming site on the internet. I hardly blame these guys for reporting the news gamers want to hear. It’s the fan response to articles like these that bothers me.

So apparently I was wrong. The Bioshock demo that I enjoyed so much is actually a big piece of crap and I’m an idiot for enjoying it. Something seems to be amiss here…

Should I enjoy the game less because it doesn’t quite look as good as another version? I seem to recall having a great time playing MK2 and NBA Jam on my old Sega Genesis despite obvious graphical inferiority to the SNES versions. What I don’t recall is anybody actually giving a damn back then. My, my how times have changed.

Real gamers played this on the Genesis with the 3 button controller.

The thing I find really hard to comprehend is how these pixel counters can call themselves “hardcore” gamers when they invest so much time into preparing comparisons like this and defending their console of choice to the death. I can’t imagine they have much time for games at all. Even more baffling is the fact that these are the same people who pretend they’re excited about the pending wiiware release of Cave Story and claim to have “been fans from the beginning” when games like Seiklus and Knytt are mentioned. Presumably this is so they can affirm just how hardcore they really are.

Yeah, right. That same guy who’s looking to start a mass 2KGames boycott over a weak texture in Bioshock is obviously a big Cave Story fan.

Just look at those next-gen graphics!

Remember when Nevermind came out and everyone in the world claimed to have been a huge Nirvana fan from way back when, despite their original album only having sold like 50 000 copies? I smelled a rat then and I smell a rat now.

The casual gaming community has taken a lot of flack since the release of the wii due to the sheer amount of shovelware hitting the market. I say it’s time we strike back. We’re not the ones buying up all those awful wii games that are seeing big sales. Blame that on uninformed parents and Gamestop managers who are pushing them on people just to free up some shelf space. We’re the ones who are out there actually playing the games. Not counting lines of resolution on our TV sets so we can arm ourselves for the inevitable argument over which version of a game is slightly superior under a microscope.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with being a casual gamer. And there’s no such thing as a hardcore gamer anymore. Just zealots. There are people who play games and then there are zealots who play each other. It’s not hard to spot a zealot; if you’re unsure, just loudly announce how much you loved Assassin’s Creed. A true zealot will shoot Cheetos from their nose and possibly run over his or her own mother with a truck in a desperate bid to tell you just how wrong you are before anyone else does.

An artist with Blizzard was kind enough to throw together this rendering of a Zealot. Watch out for them in the upcoming Starcraft 2.

So I don’t care anymore. I’m saying it. I’ll be “that guy” if I have to. Vegetarian food sucks. I don’t care how trendy it is. Assassin’s Creed was awesome. Everyone just whined about it because it was the cool thing to do. And (are you ready for this one?) Bioshock is an amazing game, no matter what console you play it on. Anyone who’s that concerned about a missing pixel, one or two weak textures or a difference of 1 frame-per-second should be playing games on a $4000 gaming rig, not a console. We all know where the real cutting edge stuff happens. Truthfully, though, if those are they types of things you’re concerned about, maybe you’d be better off just watching movies in Hi-Def instead of playing games. I mean it’s only the visuals that matter right?

I’m off to play some old Genesis games or something to remind me what it is I used to love about gaming in the first place.

The next gen starts when Big Earl says so.

In the meantime, I hope you PS3 owners who don’t have 360s won’t let the bubbling cauldron of hatred that is the internet ruin what’s looking to be a truly great gaming experience for you. And if you ever catch CG counting pixels or posting another pointless comparison video, you have our permission to kick Colin’s ass. He usually hangs out right here.

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