Adventures In Middle-Aged Gaming: The Beatles Can Blow Me

A recent exchange with an online friend of mine got me thinking about music games.  My friend is a pretty ardent Wii-hater.  While his complaints cover the usual topics around Nintendo’s shovel-ware opportunism, he is very into the videogame eSports scene and his hatred stems from feeling like the Wii is essentially an insult to anyone who believes in the promotion of eSports as a competitive medium.  

While he is mostly into sports games like FIFA he is also a huge fan of Rock Band and music games in general.  So, it was with some trepidation that I tried to make the argument that, in my opinion, music games are the worst kind of casual game and are generally an insult to all video gamers everywhere.

‘œThe fuck?!’ he said.

‘œThe fucking truth’ I responded.

‘œFuck off’ he said.

‘œNo you fuck off, you dickless hermaphrodite.’ I replied.  This went on for quite a while and I will not bore you with all of the puerile insults.  Suffice to say, I’m better at immature name-calling with a Dualshock 3 than he is…and he is in fact a dickless hermaphrodite.  For the record, if you use the word hermaphrodite in your text chat on the PSN, the system will remember it and it will be prompted any time you type ‘œh-e-r-m…’

When we went to voice chat I made my points in more detail.  In my opinion, music games are a shameless kind of casual gaming because they are nothing more than quick-time-events(QTEs).  As I hate QTEs in all forms and feel that they are lazy game programming, as far as I’m concerned all music games, especially Beatles Rock Band can suck the milky sweat off my balls for all I care.  I cannot believe the extent to which people who hate casual games love music games.  It’s as if they have a blind spot in their gaming eye that can’t see how ridiculously casual music games actually are.

‘œBut but but, you’re an old fuck!’  He observed.  ‘œAll you old fucks like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.  You all eat that shit up.’  He continued.

‘œYes we do’ I said.   Hell, old pricks like me are part of the reason behind music games being so successful in the first place. We listened to that music when it first came out in the sixties and seventies and we have dinner parties with other old fucks and, after we pound a couple bottles of pinot noir we rock out and our flabby bellies bounce, and we thrust our unreliable grey-pubed scrotums rhythmically and have a great time doing so.

‘œLook’ I said ‘œmusic and rhythm games display coloured lights on the screen that correspond to a modified controller, while playing music in the background.  That’s it.  It’s not like you have to interpret anything, or adapt.  By the very nature of the game, all you have to do to get better is to practice, the same boring nonsense over and over again.  The games get increasingly harder by simply showing more lights that move along a fixed line at faster rates.  I don’t really see how things get more casual than this.’

‘œBut you’re definitely into Beatles Rock Band aren’t you’ he asked.

‘œI couldn’t give a shit about the sixties’ version of the Backstreet Boys, so no, I don’t care about Beatles Rock Band.  Give me a compilation of the Beatles with Led Zeppellin and the Rolling Stones and I’ll think about it, but the Beatles on their own should just, let it be, and blow me.’  This was followed by silence from my buddy.  Apparently he was having trouble processing this revelation.  I have found that the majority of younger people assume that if you’re older you automatically revere older things.  This is not always true.  Some of us have taste.

As far as I’m concerned, Paul McCartney is merely the Justin Timberlake of his time.  The Beatles were a boy band consisting of preening self-absorbed moppets who, through dumb luck and a focus on harmony, happened onto an incredibly successful career.  The fact that they are getting their own, ridiculously overpriced, version of Rock Band just tells me that Sir Paul needs some extra cash for alimony to old gimpy, and Ringo is getting tired of the casino circuit.

Predictably, this argument ended the way many do on the PSN.  ‘œYou’re a tit…you want to jump into Home and grief some of the sad fucks in there who are actually trying to have a dance party?’  He suggested.  ‘œAwesomeness.’  I replied, and we did.