My brother and me, well, to be cliché, we’re about as different as night and day. I’m an inch under six feet, he’s two or three inches over six feet. I’ve filled out a bit with age, I think he’s gotten even thinner. I’ve a lighter skin tone, he has a darker skin tone. My hair has darkened from blonde to brown over the years, his hair . . . I don’t know what color it is naturally nowadays. I have no “body art,” he has an eyebrow ring and paints his fingernails black. People who meet us together are always surprised to learn we’re brothers.

And we couldn’t be more different in personality, either. I like being alone, quietly with myself, even anonymity, he likes groups, loud music, and attention. I’m a writer and editor, he’s a rock drummer. People who get to know us together start questioning our claim to be related.

As kids and teenagers, our interests were so vastly different that sometimes it’s like we grew up in two different worlds. My music was pop and soft rock, his music was hard rock and metal. My hobbies were Dungeons & Dragons and computers, his hobbies were break dancing and trick biking. My dress and appearance leaned toward preppy, his leaned toward metalhead. We moved in social circles so separate that some of our friends never saw or knew anything about our brother. Granted, some of this separation came from being four and a half years older and younger than each other (I’m the older, he’s the younger). But still, we grew up in the same house, with the same parents.

I moved out of home at a younger age, but I always stayed within a few hours of my hometown. He lived at home for longer, but when he moved away, he moved the hell away — two states away. But part of our reasons for our chosen new homes is because my career lead me to the more technological part of the South, and his lead him to the more musical part.

If you’ve read the “Who’s Bullgrit” link at the top of this page, you know, basically, what I do for a living. My brother is a musician. A drummer. What? I CAN’T HEAR YOU, YOU’LL HAVE TO SHOUT! Sorry. That’s an inside joke. Drums, like gunshots, are much, much louder in person than you’d think from audio recordings.

“Brogrit” has been in a number of bands over the years, and toured through a few states in the South. His name and picture are on some CDs, and that’s pretty damn cool.

Our worlds are so different. I’m married with two children, he’s still single. My job is filled with quiet and solitude, his is filled with noise and crowds. But when we get together, really in our hometown or virtually through the Internet, we’re so much brothers. We’re competitive to a fault. Sadly, nowadays, we rarely get together, even through the ‘net.

A few years ago, we’d get online and play Day of Defeat together. In Day of Defeat, the players team up on either the American or German side in a WWII battle — it’s a squad-level combat, first-person shooter. There’d be up to 16 or so players per side, but with a random collection of players from around the world, there was no guarantee of any kind of team play — sometimes you couldn’t even hope for real team play. But when brogrit and I teamed up, it was loads of fun. We knew, absolutely, that we could each rely on the other to provide cover, support, and communication. I’ve never played an online game with anyone else who I totally meshed with that well. Our normal competitiveness seemed to fade away as we played together against the in-game enemies.

It’s interesting how brotherly rivalry works that way.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I got a chance to play the Nintendo Wii. It wasn’t nearly as cool and exciting as I expected it to be. In fact, it was pretty dull as a game system. I played Mario Cart, Wii Sports, and I watched play of No More Heroes.

First off, the control is more gimmick than fun or functional. Everything done with the Wii controller can be done with a normal push-button controller. There was nothing in the game play that felt like it required the full motion swinging and shaking. And concepts that seemed like could be fun with the full motion controller, like sword fighting, was mostly handled by pushing the buttons on the controller. Some things, like the boxing game, was downright aggravating because of the motion controller.

Second, the games themselves were so basic and boring. They played like 1980s Atari games. The baseball game was just: one person pitches, the other person bats. Period. No controlling the fielders, no controlling the runners, and only four pitch options (selected by pushing buttons, not motion).

Boxing was the most aggravating of the games because the action is so fast, but the controlling is so slow, or sloppy. I couldn’t get my boxer on screen to punch when I punched the air, and I couldn’t get him to block (put his gloves up) when I did the move in the air.

The graphics, though smooth, were pathetically bland for a 21st century game. For instance, most of the sports characters had only a body, head, and hand(s) — no legs, no arms. Like I said, it was like old school Atari graphics in 3D.

The last game I played was bowling, and when I realized that I really didn’t need to stand up and go through the motions with the controller, I just sat down and flicked my arm. Playing the Wii takes no more “real” skill than using a normal push-button controller.

Overall, the Wii system is very overrated. It’s pure gimmick with no lasting game play benefit.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

One of Calfgrit7’s friends had a birthday party at a new small amusement park. For the party, the kids — 6 boys, 1 girl (the sister of the birthday boy) — road the bumper boats, drove go-carts, and played minature golf.

After pizza and cake, the party ended and most parents and kids went away. CG7 and I toured the huge arcade area. I haven’t been in an arcade that big in years. They had everything from the old classic Donkey Kong and Galaga to new, high-graphic games I hadn’t seen before.

Instead of quarters or tokens, this arcade took swipe cards. You can get a swipe card at the counters or at self-service machines — I used a machine, and I put $10.00 on a card. I figured that would give us plenty of game play even if the games were 50 cents a play.

I quickly discovered most of the games were $1 a play. Well, okay, we’d get 10 games on the card. Calfgrit7 got to drive in a NASCAR race, I flew a WWII fighter plane, and we hunted deer and buffalo together. This was Calfgrit7’s first time playing a shooting video game. I was hesitant at first, but I’d rather him have his first shooting game experience with me than with his little friends.

I’ve always had a draw to shooting games; I like to shoot real guns, and I’m a pretty good aim. But arcade shooting games have always been frustrating. The guns are always badly aligned, and my first quarter (or dollar) is always wasted on trying to figure out how the gun is aligned — a game gun’s alignment can vary greatly depending on distance from the screen, closeness to the edge of the screen, angle to the screen. (And sometimes I think they have some random variability.)

We played the hunting game three times, and Calfgrit7 loved it. After the first game, I had figured out the alignment of my gun, and I was racking up the hits and trophies. We chose team play, so my shooting could keep us both in the game for a decent amount of time.

One thing that quietly tickled me about this game was the eye-candy girls that came out on the screen and posed between the hunting rounds. Totally unnecessary for the game, but completely playing to the target demographic (no pun intended). It was a different girl every time, but they all wore the same outfit and held that gun like the plastic prop it must have been.

I would love to have been in the game development meeting where the idea to put these girls in the break scenes came up. How hard or easy was it to convince the producer to allow the extra budget to pay the models and video photographer. I mean, the girls add absolutely nothing to the game play aspect of the program, but they probably do draw in more eyes from male players looking for the next machine to slide a buck in. (Was that a Freudian pun?)

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I’ve quit WoW. Again. I actually canceled my account a couple of weeks ago, and the end of my subscription came the very next day. I uninstalled and deleted all my WoW files. My quitting seemed abrupt to my friends, but I’d been considering it for a few weeks.

I’ve complained before that my friends all switched faction from Horde to Alliance, and went on to out-level me in Alliance. They’d all reached level 70 before I reached level 60. They were already working towards heroic-level instances while I was grinding my way through the low 60s.

I really like WoW, but it really had become a grind at the end. Before entering Outland, my human priest character was exploring areas I hadn’t seen or been to before with my old orc hunter. Playing was still pretty much just grinding through the levels, but at least the places and quests were new and different from what I had experienced before.

Then when I went into Outland, in Hellfire Peninsula, my human priest was doing all the same quests, in the same areas that I had done with my orc hunter. The names of the quests were different, and I was based in a different town, but the actual work and terrain was the same.

When I hit level 63, all my friends were so far into the end-game adventures and gear that I really didn’t think I’d catch up and be able to take a real part in their raids for several more months. I found myself trying to play as much as possible so I could catch up faster. It just was taking too much of my time and attention.

I figured I should just give up on the game. Besides, there are some fantastic-looking first person shooter games that I’d like to try. FPSs used to be my favorite computer game style, but I haven’t played a new one in two or three years. I’ve been looking around at computer upgrades, and I’ve found some stuff that’ll let me play Crysis and Call of Duty 4 — games I’ve been dreaming of for months. So in a couple weeks, I’ll be testing out a new video card and a hot new game.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com