The Professional Gamer - June 28, 2014

This week has been busy, but has also included a lot of fun geeky times. I've been reading a lot, bought a new computer, and found one of my favorite old games for sale (at a substantial discount) on GOG.com.  Read on to learn more.

Watching: Let's discuss Sword Art Online. The first story arc of SAO is really great. All of the characters are very believable and well characterized. But then there is that second story arc that might as well have been produced entirely for the purpose of being critiqued by Femenist Frequency. There are so many issues with the way that the character of Asuna is treated. I cannot understand how the creative team could have taken such a complete turn around from the well rounded and realistic characters that are portrayed earlier in the series to the flat caricatures that are in the later half of the series, Kirito also ends up being portrayed as a blood-thristy, rage filled, killer, which is completely counter to his characterization earlier in the series.  I would rather that only the first episodes had been made. The series as a whole would be a much stronger piece of work without the second story arc.

Enough about SAO, I've also been watching the BBC Sherlock series three.  There has been at least one excellent article written about the problems that Stephen Moffat has in portraying female characters, so I won't rehash all that here. These problems continue to crop up in Sherlock Series 3. However, in spite of these weaknesses, the series is still good. Performances by Cumberbatch and Freeman are both great. The further development of the relationship (or co-dependence) of Sherlock and Watson has been compelling to me. I do recommend watching the series, because it is a lot of fun.

Reading: I'm still reading through The Lord of the Rings, Currently, Frodo and his companions are fleeing towards Rivendell after they were attacked at Weathertop. I definitely enjoy the "Flight to the Ford" chapter with the party moving carefully through the wilderness, expecting to meet the Ringwraiths at any moment.

Playing: Early last week, all of the Wing Commander games were available on GOG.com for about $10. I only ever played three of the games in the series (Privateer, Armada, and Prophecy), but now I have a chance to play through the whole series. I even ordered a new joystick, since my old one uses a COM port, which I haven't seen on any computer this side of the Dot Com crash. Also, I manage to crash Privateer within 5 minutes of starting by pushing the Pause/Break button.  This caused my ship to jump systems, nevermind that I wasn't at a jump point and didn't have a jump drive in my ship anyways. Regardless, keep an eye out for these games if they go on sale again. Wing Commander was the most fun that I had with a computer when I was in middle school,

In other news, I'm typing this article on a new laptop. I'm so happy to have a full size keyboard and a mouse for article production.  It's a really good feeling. That's all that I have for this week.  Game On!