High-Maintenance: An Explication On Competing Gender Roles In Video Games

Sub Farooq on August 22nd, 2008

Abandoning the long standing tradition of keeping girlfriends and video games mutually exclusive in their respective domains, I recently merged the two parts of my central nervous system that deal with each together and pondered why they cannot peacefully co-exist. Seemingly, most video games in the action/adventure genre reinforce the idea of being devoted to your gal and, one would presume, girls would welcome that gentle reminder to dudes that all that tedious coin-gathering and heroic enemy-bashing is done to attain that ultimate prize: the love of a woman (usually a Princess.)

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Tis Not Better to Receive…

Sub Farooq on April 6th, 2008

I remember when I was a junior in high school I came home one day and my mom had bought me a Nintendo 64 as a little surprise present for my last report card. Incidentally, it wasn’t like I got all A’s or anything, she just wanted to show her appreciation that she actually received my report card…rather than me taking it out of the mail like I usually did and burying it somewhere near Jimmy Hoffa before she could get her mitts on it. I found the gift ironic in a way…I mean it’s an odd gift from my mom if she actually cared how I did in school. Giving a video game console for good grades is sorta like buying a round of jager-bombs for AA members who’ve been sober for a year. The reward is essentially undermining the very thing you are trying to reward.

But my mom, like most moms, was a conniving and perpetually insidious banshee. No gift from a mom comes free and clear without some sort of benefit to her. You see, the N64 was now a bargaining chip for Mother. Here’s how a conversation usually went before I had my N64:

Mom: Sub, clean your room.

Me: No.

Now here’s the same conversation post-N64:

Mom: Sub, clean your room.

Me: No.

Mom: Clean your room or I will throw the N64 away.

Me: Where’s the vacuum?

From that day on I was always cautious of a free lunch. If it sounds too good to be true…it probably is. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go fill out this little form…apparently I can get like 13 magazine subscriptions for a buck. Score!
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Punch-Out: The Most Racist Video Game Ever Made

Sub Farooq on March 3rd, 2008

And in the nineteenth hundred and ninetieth year A.D., the Lord created Super Nintendo…and it was good. Upon its American release, people flocked to their nearest video game retailer and embraced the new console as a welcomed diversion from their meaningless lives filled with crappy sitcoms (i.e. Step by Step) and hair metal (i.e. Night Ranger). Also, in the same year, Nintendo decided to rename the titles of one of their most popular 8-bit games (Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!) to simply “Punch Out!.”

Truth be told, people shouldn’t give two shits about old school Nintendo game names after Super Nintendo came out …hell, I don’t think Nintendo really cared in the first place (c’mon guys…. Rad Racer? Really?). Most people who were into video games were too busy playing Super Mario World to care about 8-bit titles….even if “Dig-Dug” had been changed to “Super Pedophile Cocaine Master” on the older console. Who cares about the past when it comes to stuff like this? Worry about the present people. That’s like our government right now cracking down on pornography by destroying old 8mm burlesque footage of two-hundred pound broads in pasties flopping around to swing music while the kiddies pound off to trannies online.

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