I also haven't seen 300 yet; I'm a pop culture outcast.

You probably haven't heard this anywhere yet, but there's this new gaming coming out called Halo 3... Ha. In the real world, advertising and publicity for Halo 3 is literally everywhere - you can't even fill your gas tank without seeing it ads for Halo themed slurpees.

...

Actually, before I talk about Halo, let's discuss my gamer credentials. I am a gamer in the truest sense of the word. I grew up gaming. Honestly - I grew up with somewhat inattentive parents in an area with no other children my age. Video games were pretty much my babysitter and best friend for my early life. I've had damn never every system that came out, at least until recent years: Atari, NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy, Game Gear, N64, Virtual Boy, Playstation, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube, PS2, Nintendo DS, and most recently the Nintendo Wii. I've probably at least played every system not on this list as well. Once I was older and had kids around me, I was always the kid the other kids asked to come over and beat this level or that boss for. I've always been a completionist - I can't just beat a game, I have to get every item, uncover every secret, read every line, and watch every cut scene. I was playing games online before playing games online was the massive industry it is now. From Diablo to City of Heroes and many many games inbetween, most notably World of Warcraft and a very long history with Ultima Online long long long before the Trammel split. Hell, I was playing MUDs online in middle school. So all in all, I think it's safe to say that I'm a gamer. I'm a serious gamer.

Now back to Halo 3... The hype-fest that is Halo 3. The game finally comes out tomorrow and gamers all over are practically salivating, just waiting to devote the next month of their lives to the game. But you know what? I couldn't care less about this game. Honestly. Despite all the mass-advertising, I am so apathetic that I didn't even know when it was coming out - I had to look up the release date before writing this to make sure it wasn't actually out yet. I've played Halo. I'm played Halo 2. Sure, they're fun for a little while... but they aren't anything to get this worked up over. It's a shooter. Like every other damn shooter out there. Halo = Half-Life = Doom = Far Cry and so on and so on. Honestly, aside from cosmetic differences and what passes for storyline in those games, they're almost completely interchangeable. Halo isn't even the best in the genre! Half-Life and it's derivative games (namely Team Fortress) are unquestionably superior games! But the sad part is that Halo has somehow helped to created a new type of gamer. The term means something entirely different now - it's used for the douche-baggy, frat boy, "no kiddy game" playing, xbox-fanboyish dicks in the gaming world. The people that can actually say "newb" with a straight face and are intellectually empty enough to actually think Ctrl+Alt+Del is the best webcomic on the 'net.
It's disgusting, and unfortunately seems to be a growing trend. So sadly, we're going to have to slowly say goodbye to the real games of the world. Traditional RPGs, the genre I would argue belong to the real gamers, are already on their way out. Quirky, inventive games will continue to sell only as minor novelty items. And the "next-gen" systems will only more and more keep to their winning tactic - "better" graphics and more guns.
Thank God I got the Wii. Nintendo is where it's at. The Wii's unique gaming perspective and the DS's recent leaning towards RPGs makes them the two most stand out systems on the shelves today. Nintendo may just be the last hope for the real gamers left in the world. Frankly, I look forward to Nintendo reclaiming their rightful throne.