G-pinions

If you're looking at the date line of this column, just know that the extremely late hour listed is slightly deceiving. It says 4am but that is just when these first few sentences are finding their way on to the page. I figure it will be much closer to 5am when I finally wrap this thing up. In other words, it is very late, much later than I am usually up (especially since I only got 5 hours of sleep last night so I could drive 90 minutes to watch the 49ers lose by 38 points), but I do have a good reason: I finally finished reading Bill Simmon's first book. The Great Bill Simmons. Ok, that may be a little much, but he is my favorite writer. "Now I Can Die in Peace" is a collection of his columns through the years, chronicling all the pain he endured as a Red Sox fan before they finally won a championship. It's a moving book because I did watch every inning of the 2003 and 2004 playoffs. I was able to feel the crushing defeat of a Game 7 loss two years ago and the unreal comeback from an 0-3 deficit to beat the evil Yankees and eventually win the World Series the following season. Obviously, this isn't relevant in a video game column. But it made me realize that, while baseball and video games are just stupid diversions to some people, to fans they are much more than that. I spend way too many hours each week playing games, writing about games, reading about games, and arguing about games. I dream about games even. And while my borderline obsession (borderline? Who am I kidding?) may seem sad to people who have never really played a game in their life, to me it is a perfectly acceptable reason to get out of bed in the morning or have something concrete to look forward to one year from now.

The difference between sports and video games is that, when your favorite team comes through in sports you have undeniable visual evidence to back it up. The 49ers of 1994 were the best team in the league. They went 16-3 and won the Super Bowl. This is a fact. It doesn't matter if they win 3 games in the next 76 years, they still won a Super Bowl January 29, 1995, and I watched every second. (For those who care, I actually remembered this date. I'm quite proud of this actually. It's like being married for a decade when your wife quizzes you on what kind of ice cream she ordered on your first date. "Dark Chocolate mixed with Pumpkin," you cooly reply.

But when I say Super Mario Kart is the best game I have ever played or try to rally a group of disgruntled gamers to take over the EA offices, people look at me and shrug. It's just my opinion, right?

Well Perfect Dark Zero is the video game equivalent of a team falling to the bottom of the barrel, being left for dead, and then somehow rising from the depths of purgatory to win a championship. Honestly, after four years of mediocrity, with their best game being a simple 2D platformer named Sabre Wulf that no one played, even I had doubts that Rare would be able to regain their form. Sure, they used to make classic titles, but how much help did they actually receive from Nintendo? And how many people actually left? Why did those people end up leaving? Heck, why was Nintendo so willing to sell them? Would Microsoft force them to make games they didn't want to make? We all saw what happened when Nintendo forced them to port Dinosaur Planet to the Gamecube and slap Star Fox characters in it - would Rare just crap out substandard games until MS finally cut them loose? Would Rare ever make a worthwhile console game again?

I may have been the only guy in the world who honestly though Perfect Dark Zero had a chance to be great, but I certainly wouldn't have bet the lives of 37 German Shepard puppies that they would come through. I was like an overzealous father who showed up at all of my kid's piano recitals but secretly hoped they wouldn't mess up. Nothing would be more crushing to me than have PDZ appear on the scene, completely suck, and have to live through many more months and years of people complaining that Rare had, in fact, lost it and would never take back whatever "It" is. Thank God they came through with Perfect Dark Zero.

This is the part of the column where people see I love PDZ, skip everything else I have to say, and just post a nasty comment. Feel free to do it. I'm sure any negative thing you will say about PDZ will be true and indefensible. For those who haven't yet played this game, allow me to remove any doubt - this game has a ton of problems. Tens of problems, maybe even hundreds. In fact, it has more problems than most bad games on the market. It seems like for every good point I could make, someone could find a negative aspect of the same thing to complain about. So I'm not going to write about that. I don't want to defend this game. There's no point. PDZ is like a band, any band at all. Think about your favorite band. Can you explain why you like them? If you play them for someone and they sneer, can you defend them? Is there any way you could possibly say something to make someone appreciate them? Perfect Dark Zero may be the best example of art in video games simply because, like any piece of art, it has supporters and detractors and the two sides will never meet. In fact, I can't think of any game that has so polarized gamers. Journalists are split, casual gamers are split, and even system loyalists are split. PDZ is like the movie Closer - whether you love it or hate it, you have a strong opinion and will never be swayed.

I could care less if people hate PDZ, though. I've played it. I know it's great. And I am just so happy that Rare is finally back that nothing could bring me down now.

If you're wondering, I am finally posting this at 4:50am. I have no problem with Nick slyly posting his PDZ column five hours before me. No problem at all.