...But I didn't have a mountain, I had a Blogpage.

Hello Blogosphere. I have something to announce. It is very important and I must have your attention. Shady Lewis...Is a massive nerd.

Ok, so that was probably about as obvious as Oprahs waxing and waning cake fetish, but I felt I needed to make it unashamedly clear. Personally, I think everyone is a massive nerd somewhere inside. I'm just true to my inner nerd. Tell me for one second if someone offered you a game of Dungeons and Dragons somewhere with some friends you wouldn't take them up on it. Booze, funny figurines and a story you can mess with...and dice? It's like the ultimate board game. So why do people hate it so? (Admittedly, I've never played a game of D&D, but if someone asked me to play, I'd be all over that like Quentin Tarantino on feet). Is it because we've lived through ages of stereotypes where the jocks are the coolest, and nerds who play D&D live like a sub species of humanity? Seriously, everyone these days are geeks. It used to be if you were into computer games you were a geek. Now a majority of males, including jocks, play games such as Halo (*shudder*). Nerd culture is becoming intertwined with the commonplace, but still nerds are seen as the least cool in society.

Largely the nerd "dress-code" probably doesn't help. They're about as inconspicuous as a Goomba at Mario's birthday bash. If just for once we could get them to break out of their cheap runners, cargo pants, black shirts and fleecy pullovers it would be like biting through the calf muscle of the animal keeping nerds down. Or, you know, totally like that scene when Legolas takes down the Oliphant in Return of the King. Imagine if geeks actually SHOWED some geek chic? How often does that happen that an honest to god geek can ever have the word "Chic" attributed to him? Anything? Anyone?

Unfortunately however, the reason most nerds are still lowest on the social ladder is the complete lack of social tools one can muster (most also lack the upper body strength to physically CLIMB a ladder in the first place, but that's neither here nor there in this metaphor). I am currently undertaking one of the most superficial of all undergraduate degrees, a double degree in Games and Interactivity. This gives quite an amazing insight into who actually works in the games industry, and it is not a pretty sight people...Three girls sat in my first Interactive Games Structures lecture (of about 100 people) and around each one of them, there was a circle of chairs separating them as if they had cooties. After that circle was a group of such insurmountably socially retardant (no I mean retardant, not retarded. They are in fact impervious to social norms) dweebs gawking as if it was the first time they'd seen a girl without the aid of the internet. Come on, grow some self esteem and talk to someone! Unfortunately they never do, and instead turn to the interweb to get their social on.

But this makes for many, many nerds who are just plain mean. The nerd culture is something I believe everyone has a secret love affair with, like your cleaning lady. However, nerds themselves are largely just internet trolls looking for lulz by causing you as much pain as possible. That or grammar nazis in Modern Warfare 2. I HATE them. But this is a vicious cycle. These massive nerds have been pushed down by the stereotypes they have become defined by. If nerds were accepted, then we wouldn't HAVE asshole nerds (who I will now refer to as assherds.), but because we HAVE assherds others get repressed by the stereotypes that are to bind them to a similar fate.

Once again this has become a post about inherent wrongs in society. It seems to be a common theme for me, like Mythbusters and their complete lack of scientific content. But I can't steer away, it's like smack. One go around, and you wake up three hours later up to your ankles in frangelico with three French hookers screaming about how you beat up their monkey and ate the scented three-burner candle. Except less expensive. So I apologise for the depth with which my flippant posts always seem to dig with little or no evidence but that of the anecdotal.

SO now it's time for the shallow part.

Playing through Dragon Age: Origins has so far been an interesting experience in really working out the gaming community and critics. This game, for those how don't know, is a fantasy role playing game (RPG) where you must defeat darkspawn by stepping into the shoes of a human/elf/dwarf who specialises as a warrior/mage/rogue. Sound stereotypically familiar? It should. It's like every other generic fantasy RPG ever conceived. However, this game garners a pretty impressive score of 91 on metacritic and was lauded as the third best game of last year.

The controls handle like a wet salmon. The setting is like everything we've seen before, except with better voice acting. The abilities, weapons, armour, enemies and loot look ripped out of every D&D game offshoot ever created. The character customisation, marketed as one of the best ever to grace our humble, pixelated characters, was even pretty mediocre. So why is this game so good? Because it's exactly what most gamers want. A slab of cold, familiar, stats-based slaying of mysterious evil foes with some story in.

These days it seems if you get a done concept, get some voice actors, make the game-world big and half pretty then BAM! Quicker than a monkey with a spatula can make a shit sandwich, you have a game of the year.

However, I think my main beef with this game is I have no idea what on earth I'm meant to be doing almost ALL THE TIME. It tells you quite simply "Open your journal to view your quests". However, once I've viewed my quests (usually that classic "hey, can you get me X of this so I can give you X of this?" drivel) I actually had less clue of where I was going. Am I going to the swamps to get the flowers or the fields? I guess that lady looks pretty haggy, maybe the swamps? But the swamps have darkspawn. I HATE darkspawn. Fine, I'll go to the fields. Only I find out 20 minutes later, after looking up a walk-through, it wasn't the swamps OR the fields, it was a freaking niche next to the old church with the crier! OF COURSE!?!? Where else do flowers grow but at the feet of zealoutous monks who you can't shut up and instead make you avoid that area of the game for fear of bleeding ears.

Overall, average game. Nothing to see here folks. This has been Shady.

*Also, points to the person who can point out the inspiration for the title of this particular rant.