Buli balik

One thing I forgot to mention about things that keep me up in the wee hours of the morning is video games. Really. In the dead of night while everyone else is busy gallivanting gaily in the Land of Dreams and I'm stuck in the deepest bowels of the hospital, I usually click on to one of the games in my PC.

Maybe the games that we play actually do tell us a little about ourselves. For myself these days, I'm normally into strategic turn-based games such as Civilization and Rise of Nations. Obviously I'm heavily into nonstop expansion, peace-keeping and building tons of dramatic theatres and libraries for my cultured citizens - but of course that doesn't make us whiny, namby-pamby wusses since once the envious neighbours piss me off, I casually drop a nuke on them vaporizing their pitiful nation without remorse.

Since Charming Calvin loaned me his wonderful SIMS ( which I doubt I'm ever returning! ) I've been hooked - it's a mythical Wisteria Lane with lovely suburban Pottery Barn inspired homes where gorgeous, immaculately-dressed gay dads socialize with their civilized neighbours over tea and crumpets in the late evenings while their son indulges in oil painting and the occasional shirtless basketball game ( is that what they're calling it? ) with the sexy gardener.

Used to be heavily into detective / adventure games such as my late lamented Laura Bow ( and the hunky droolsome Steve Dorian ) and the absolutely hilarious, irreverent Indiana Jones / Monkey Island sthick but I haven't had the time to seriously delve into such games for a long time - and anyway, they just don't make them like they used to :) With prepubescent, hormonally imbalanced kids getting more sadistically violent these days, innocent little PG-rated mystery games unfortunately just aren't going to cut it. Violent shoot-em-ups and gory bloodfests give me a massive headache and I tend to stay away from such mindless gratuitous mayhem - although on the rare occasion, I do enjoy making like a Scorpion and causing a vicious cervical-snapping fatality or two.

Still, I doubt any of the gamers could have anticipated a game such as this. Just look at what gay gamers have discovered about Rockstar Games' uber-controversial Bully. Here's the premise of the game: "You play tough kid Jimmy Hopkins, who enters Bullworth Academy as a last resort after numerous expulsions from better places. Bullworth turns out to be a totalitarian state, where the jocks, bullies and teachers rule with no mercy, and the nerds live in fear. Will Jimmy emerge as their leader and hero?"

All-male prep academies certainly never looked like this.

But then you just never can tell about these thuggish Neanderthal-like bullies since controversial gay urban legend has always claimed that these seemingly homophobic boys are only trying to mask their hidden insecurities ( and the fact that they're awesome kissers ). Seriously though, I certainly never had such randy encounters in all my years in an all-boy school! If I'd known it was this easy to get a hunky blond jock to swap saliva, maybe I would have given out more presents.

Yeah, they sure don't make games like they used to :) And sometimes very rarely it's for the better.