APergo's Mancouch

Are Female Gamers Underrepresented?

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:14:57 GMT

I've been gaming since I first developed motor skills fine enough to hold a controller and push a button simultaneously. Since that point, I've been able to enjoy games not only by myself, but with all of my friends, and with the inception of online gaming, hundreds of thousands of other people as well.

In that time, however, I've noticed something very distinct about nearly all of my multiplayer gaming experiences: they're almost completely dominated by men. Except, women make up a fairly large percentage of the game playing population. A study by the Entertainment Software Association suggests that 40% of gamers are female, not a majority, mind you, but still a large enough percentage that one would think they'd be more noticeable. More Here...

Cockblocking Yourself

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:47:36 GMT

Most guys don't want to come right out and admit it, but there's a (mostly) universal truth about people who've got some dingle-dangle going on between their legs: they're horny, often. Very often, in fact. Of course, everyone has weaknesses. For some it's chocolate, or maybe just food in general. For others it's booze, or internet gambling, or even WoW. But man's ultimate kryptonite, the one thing we all share in common, is the desire for unclothed encounters with the object of our desires.

Unfortunately, not every guy is skilled in the game of romance. Plenty of guys are just bumbling idiots who, though they're interested in sex, also happen to be overly interested in things like beer, the New York Jets, and hair metal. Even more guys are perfectly intelligent, worthy suitors, but are too oblivious to read cues from women or realize when they're cockblocking themselves. And that, my friends, is a huge problem. More Here...

Where You Live Isn't Boring, It's You.

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:21:28 GMT

At some point, everyone's overheard someone complaining, or had a conversation with a friend about just how boring their surroundings are. Usually it's because, after a certain length of time living in any one place, people crave new experiences, new sights and sounds, to break out of the norm and feel like they're living again.

The phrases are easily recognizable. It goes from "There's nothing to do here," straight to "Everyone's been hanging out at the same bar since practically the beginning of time."

Months of monotonous activity make this kind of thinking perfectly understandable. Hometowns, new cities and even friends can lose their luster after a while. But unless you're living in the middle of the woods, hundreds of miles from the nearest signs of civilization, or trapped in a hole thanks to old, dependable Buffalo Bill, the complaint rings a little hollow, especially when it's said over and over again by the same person. More Here...

Could You Handle Living In The Wild?

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:03:46 GMT

Our culture is steeped in depictions of people surviving disasters, disease outbreaks, fictional invasions of zombies and aliens, and all other manner of world-ending or altering events. We watch people hole themselves up in Wal-Marts, shopping malls, abandoned prisons and even the bitter cold of the wilderness, and in the movies, the televisions shows, the comics and books, some of them even manage to survive against the longest odds.

But in reality, if we were faced with a sudden scenario that forced us to flee our homes, neighborhoods, or maybe even our own countries, and were forced to live off the land to survive, what would we, as a society, do? How would we cope? Assuming, of course, that we can still call ourselves a society at that point. More Here...

Crazy Tom Cruise Action Figures

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:49:53 GMT

Remember a few years ago when Tom Cruise was going nuts, babbling on about love, Scientology and psychiatry? Sure, it was practically career suicide, but on the other hand, it was also a whole lot of fun, and it could have been an extremely lucrative time for him.

We could have had a whole line of Crazy Tom Cruise action figures, each one featuring Tom in one of his many patented insane guises. More Here...

Caprica Is Restoring My Faith In Sci-Fi

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:25:56 GMT

For a long time, I was really worried about the fate of science fiction. It seemed like everywhere I looked, hardly anyone was interested in the tales of grim futures, space travel and superheroes. Sure, there were a few movies that made people stir, like the Matrix, the somewhat sub-par Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but outside of major releases like those, good sci-fi wasn't easy to find. For the most part, it seemed like whatever was out there was only being eaten up by imagination junkies such as myself.

Television has often been one of the worst places to find quality sci-fi. Promising shows like Space: Above and Beyond and Firefly were canceled far before their time, and for quite a while, TV sci-fi was relegated to the various Star Trek series, all of which varied widely from week to week in quality, Babylon 5, and the X-Files (which isn't exactly the high-concept sci-fi I'm getting at here). And if you count the Sci-Fi channel's (now SyFy) movie-of-the-week in that tally, then our futuristic fantasy entertainment was left up to a handful of D-list actors, a few washed up Baldwins, and Patrick Stewart. More Here...

How Do You Feel About Nudity In Games?

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:50:08 GMT

Gaming has come a long way since Pong. Now we control characters in lifelike, three-dimensional environments and make them engage in activities that range from cooking and pooping all the way to piloting advanced stealth aircraft and detonating nuclear weapons.

In that time, the detail of those character models has done nothing but improve. We've got games where we can make out the sweat on our hero's brow, and fully realized 'jiggling' in pretty much every Dead Or Alive game. The detail is remarkable.

Now that we've come that far, it seems like nudity was simply inevitable. Sure, there are perverted anime games that have used nudity as a selling point for a long time, but now it's starting to creep its way into mainstream titles, like the recently released Saboteur. More Here...

The Holodeck Would Be The Ultimate Gaming Platform

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:11:04 GMT

Though many of you might not be Star Trek fans, I bet most of you are familiar with some of the fictional technology the shows have introduced us to. For example, I can't think of many people who don't know what someone means when they say "Beam me up, Scotty." or who aren't familiar with the idea of warp drive.

Of course, there's one particular piece of Treknology that's always intrigued me more so than the rest, and that's the holodeck. I'll explain it briefly for those of you who aren't quite the nerd that I am.

The holodeck is essentially a large, open room with walls covered in specialized projectors that, when in use, project completely lifelike three-dimensional environments that are fully interactive. From plants to furniture, right down to weaponry and even people, the holodeck immerses the user in a simulated reality that is, more often than not, indistinguishable from real life. More Here...

Ladies, Never Ask Your Ex To 'Stay Friends'

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:20:41 GMT

Many of us have been there before, that bittersweet moment at the end of a relationship where you know it's over and there's basically nothing that can be done to save it. So you mentally prepare yourself to part ways for good, to return to the single life, dust yourself off and go back out on the prowl.

And then she says, "But we'll still be friends.", and some of that sudden separation anxiety goes away. You start thinking that in some way or another, you'll still be a significant part of each other's lives, only you won't really. In fact, they might be the most hollow words anyone can ever speak.

I'm sure there are plenty of guys guilty of these words as well, but in my experience, it's always been the female side that does the grasping for some kind of friendship, and I'm here to tell you it has to stop. More Here...

N64 Kid Remixes

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:30:38 GMT

As most of us probably know by now, the N64 kid is somewhat of an internet phenomenon. The raw enthusiasm he displays when confronted with one of the most coveted gifts in gaming history reminds us all what it was like to be kids on Christmas.

More importantly, though, that same unhindered passion for a gaming system is so over the top that it practically begs to be parodied, or in this case, tampered with just a little bit to make things a little more fun. You'll see why:

The Metal Remix: Everything seems just a little bit more dire and apocolyptic when metal is involved, so why not Christmas morning?

More Here...