I made a bit of a mistake today – I turned on the PS3 and popped MAG into the disc drive. I don’t say mistake because it’s a bad game – I haven’t played it enough to form any coherent opinion on it yet*. I say mistake because, as an online shooter, it is full of the worst people in the world. The kind who exist to both make my life hell and to show us that, actually, gaming is the pursuit of utter wanktwats. And not fine, socially-adjusted, interesting, witty, fun, outgoing, fashionable, upstanding members of the community like myself.
Rather than go into the usual rant about these plebeians and their uncouth manner, I will instead approach from a different angle. No, I’m not going to question why the ones with headsets feel the need to sing at you all the time, or why others decide it would be the best of ideas to play music at you all the time, or what exactly is so funny about someone being foreign all the time, or why we don’t in fact want to hear the inane babbling of a 14-year-old American kid all the time (leave that shit to me, fool), or – of course – why people feel the need to call you a ‘faggot nigger Jew cunt’ all the time.
No, these are questions we could not answer even if we wanted to, for the reasons why they happen simply do not exist. There is no logical basis for why any one of these things occur all the time, never mind ALL of them. In fact, the very thought that all of the above things go on all the time in games like MAG, Modern Warfare 2, Halo and the like offers up a bulletproof argument that there is, indeed, no god.
Where was I? Ah yes – online etiquette. Playing games. You’re mucking about, get over it. Don’t sing, unless it’s funny. Don’t insult, unless it’s funny. Basically, what I’m saying is: why aren’t all online communities exactly the same as on Everybody’s Golf World Tour? Never before had I played a game online against strangers and managed to go more than twenty minutes without being called a ‘wop kike coon homo’ (or some variation thereof) until I fired up EG. The people aren’t just polite; they’re encouraging, friendly and seem to genuinely want to have a good game, rather than just insult you and scream bloody murder should you win.
Basically what I’m saying is that I want to be a cyber-50-year-old man.
Shit.
*It’s a bit shit though, if we’re being totally honest.