"Bow, Nigger"

[Cacophanus]

Whilst being subjected to Kieron Gillen's latest spate of egocentric wankiness, I noticed a link to a truly wondrous piece of writing about games. Entitled "Bow, Nigger" it's about a personal experience of racism in gaming and how that personally affected the author (in a good vs evil way). Here is the link.

I can see this "style" being copied though, insidiously too, but I do feel that personal sincerity is paramount to how we personally view games, not only as potential journalists but also as gamers. I also want to give the guy that wrote this a big hug.

[Darwock]

What a lot of waffle! Me eyes crossed over after all the detailed descriptions of JKII game physics... and is it just me or does:

"So I bowed. Not because I was naive enough to think he'd give any significance to the gesture. Not because he was commanding me to from his pillar of arrogance. I bowed /despite/ his taunts. For all his goading I did 'the right thing', to show him I wasn't going to come and meet him down on his level."

...not make any sense at all? How does doing what somebody tells you to, equate to not sinking to their level?

On the dealing with abusive players front - I was playing Socom 2 last night but my comms button was off for some reason. I accidentally stepped on a mine laid by my teammate - my bad. However the torrent of abuse that followed from him was way OTT, going on about idiot teammates stepping on mines they KNOW are there (he didn't tell us he was placing them). He kept going on about it for three rounds (unanswered by me obviously). In the next we were down to one surviving member, who got killed. This guy started calling him a twat and a useless ****ing tosser and all sorts.

In the next round I followed him, shotgun set to automatic and when he started laying his precious mines I emptied 10 rounds into the whinger. This is very bad etiquette, team killing is supposedly as low as you can go and I've risked getting reported to the CS admins, but the guy left the game (after hanging on to give me an earful) so our playing experience improved. I couldn't talk to him but was sick of listening to the abuse he was giving to everyone.

[Papercut]

...not make any sense at all? How does doing what somebody tells you to, equate to not sinking to their level?

Made sense to me, it was a nice article.

I didn't think it was very unusual though, it just reads like a (well written) blog entry.

[Marvelon]

I was in this forum to post a link to the very article. I -love- it. I completely agree with his good vs. evil stance and how it comes about in most online games.

[ukplumber]

Excellent!

[kimenon69]

Great little story that

Makes me want to go out and buy the game.

[Moodmon]

Amazing really. As a reader of PC Gamer, I've noticed the quality has been quitely improving (Battlefield: Vietnam review notwithstanding). Then comes along an article that is so good, it puts the rest of the magazine to shame. It is certainly the finest piece of writing I've seen in PC Gamer.

As a side note: kimenon69, under no circumstances should you buy this game. I was given it as a gift, and having played it nearly inserted it up the giver's rectum.

[Darwock]

Maybe I should read it again. All the Star Wars talk put me right off.

[Garibaldi Biscuit]

It's a nice piece, and you do feel glad he won out in the end.

Gillen's musing is interesting also, touches on a lot of things I've been wondering about myself, I see nothing 'egocentric' about it.

[baad bwoy]

I really enjoyed that piece, and was glad the cheating idiotic racist got his comeuppance.

[Alf-Life]

Nice Reminds me of all the duel fun I had 2 years ago in JK2... I've heard they've patched it loads since its release and the duelling is really strategic now. Must go back and try it.

[Magnakai]

Wow, what a fantastic article. Thanks for posting that up.

[Squirtle]

Nice.

Don't believe a word of it.

But nice, anyway.

[C']

A brilliant piece of writing no doubt.

I'm not sure if I'm embarassed to admit this or not, but I got genuinely excited as it developed and it became clear that he may be turning the duel around. In fact, I immediately re-read several key paragraphs severla times over, instead of continuing through the article on several occasions.

[JRMacumber]

Good read. I haven't play JKII online in a long time. Might have to fire that up. I do remember the bowing though. I laughed my ass off at first, but quickly came to see it as ceremonial and something I should do as well. Strange how that develops...