Google Reader Package: Game Blogs

Here's a Google Reader package of gaming news sites and blogs that I read on a daily basis. They include the following blogs:

• Xbox Live's Major Nelson
• Wonderland
• MyGamerCard.net Site Announcements
• GamePolitics.com
• MTV Multiplayer
• Part Time Gamer
• 4 color rebellion
• The Escapist
• Gamers With Jobs -
• Kotaku
• Penny-Arcade
• Downloadable Content, The Penny Arcade Podcast

Our Best Month Ever

The point of Part Time Gamer isn't really to get traffic or sell ads (though I do have Google ads for the heck of it) or drive magazine sales, it's a few friends that live far apart from each other who thought it would be a good idea to write about the different games we play and look forward to playing.

But traffic does always seem to find us. Our average week is about 20 visits a week. I have every single Sitemeter.com report to back that up. But this year we've been consistently getting over 50 visits a week and, this month, we've had the most visits ever to the site, 390 and over 520 page views.

Since the blog started in November of 05, we've had 7,364 visits to the site and over 10,500 page views.

An Excellent Read, We Are

It looks like we made a list of gaming blogs and were noted as an "excellent read". I'm going to assume it's partly because they only found 5 gaming blogs. But it's nice to be listed with the big boys.

I'll have to do some searching around the web later to see if anyone else likes us.

Gamer Vacations (aka Someone Reads this Website)

Woohoo! Our first submission email!

I got an email from, of all things, airlinecreditcards.com that keeps a blog about travel destinations. Jessica Hupp posted up about the top 25 Gamer Vacation Destinations.

Some of the destinations don't make much sense (Beach rental?), so I'm not sure if 25 was just a magic number (though I probably would take a DS to the beach, so okay, you got me). But there are some real winners in here.

Penny Arcade Expo is definetly on my list of things to do. Especially since we have friends and family on the west coast to stay with. E3 would be nice, but I'm afraid my blogger cred will never get me into such an exclusive (especially since the recent format change) event.

So if you're planning this summer's vacation with the family and want to sneak in some gaming, suggest some of these but don't mention the fact that there is gaming there. That's a true Part Time Gamer tactic for ya. Always intend to get your game on, even in the most unlikely spots.

More on Black Zombies

Last week I posted about Kym Platt and what she thought about a game with black zombies and a white protagonist (the yet-to-be-released game, Resident Evil 5).

It seems the gamer community has struck back. And she didn't take it well.

As it turns out, Kym isn't even calling ownership on the original article, but a response to another, white author's article on the matter. There is no mention of any other article by this other author in her original post.

What the point is though, is that Kym thinks people will see the game as racist. Is racism still living in the country? Sure. Are some gamers racist? Quite possibly. Is bringing up the issue helpful? Who knows.

Are gamer tired of people stepping in a criticizing their hobby of choice? Most definetly.

Personally, I wish for the days when Sears published video games and my mom left me alone in the living room to find another Fire Flower.

White Man vs Black Zombies = Racism?

An article on Kotaku brings up a piece written on Black Looks, a blog catering to black women.

Resident Evil 5 is set in Africa. One of the RE universe's characters is there for some reason and runs into a horde of zombies, who are correctly black skinned. Kym Platt, the blogger, says...

This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.

Let's see here...

• Why is "Black" capitalized and not "white"?
• Where does the game say black people are inhuman savages. This isn't Resident African. It's Resident Evil. A game about zombies.
• All 13 games in the series have been white zombies killed by white men and women. If anything, you should be pissed you weren't included a long time ago.
  
• The game is rated M (for mature). No kids are playing this game unless you buy it for them. Oh that's right, you don't have any.
• You don't consider yourself "Black"
  
• Your damn right. I better be afraid and hate and want to destroy black zombies. Just as much as yellow zombies and brown zombies. Zombies suck. Really.
  
• If I lived in a world where zombies existed, we would preach this game to children. I would personally show my son or daughter how to pop a zombies head off with shotgun.
• If Chris Redfield was a black Chris Redfield, would you have written your blog?

I guess I enjoy opinions as much as she does. But if we go around making games about non-descript people in non-descript areas of the world, what does that mean?

Also try to remember, white people didn't make this game, Japanese people did.

Gameless Weekend

Between a wedding (7/7/07), IKEA, Home Depot and Lowes; Between driving to D.C. and back; Between sleeping and more sleeping...gaming hours this weekend equal zero.

I've been keeping up with the blogs though. Internet access on the phone is crucial.

I'm also happy to report that over the weekend, the coordinator for Child's Play got in touch with me over the Facebook over the group I started. It's now sitting at 75 members with $75 dollars raised.

Ok. Time for more sleep. I have lots of computers waiting for me tomorrow at work.