Catholic News Service video games article tells us things we already knew

The Catholic News Agency did a story on video games, which you can read about here.

If it wasn't a Catholic news agency writing the story, I probably wouldn't waste time posting it, as the story could easily be filed under the "Does this article even have a point" category. Most of the info is stuff we already knew, and some of it makes me wince.

C'mon Catholics, we can do MUCH better than this.

The article starts strong, giving me a decent history of gaming. Things I mostly knew, but I'm not going to fault them for setting up the fact that gaming started with Pong and "evolved into a complex creative form whose impact now ranks with that of movies, TV and popular music."

 (FYI, you can tell how much the author of any story DOESN'T play games by how quickly they throw Pong into the equation. Pong was great and all, but if you really wanna show your old-school knowledge, drop a Demon Attack reference on me instead).

 Anyways, the article cites stats, gives way to the widespread penetration of games into homes, then segues into how violent games are. Nintendo's Wii is cited as the most family-friendly option due to the motion-based controller matching up with inoffensive content (the ultra-violent Madworld escapes mention), while mentioning that the X-Box 360 and PS3 are trying to capture the family-friendly market.

Surprisingly, the author never mentions the fact that those systems have their own motion-based controls. The two bright spots in this article is an explanation of Bioshock's exploration of morality and the limits of personal freedom, and a quote from "Grand Theft Childhood" author Cheryl K. Olson, who says, "I remember watching my son play games such as 'Legend of Zelda' when he was a young teen. He had to search, plan, and try different approaches to advance. You don't get those kinds of benefits from watching cartoons or sitcoms on TV."

 That's a solid defense of gaming. Too bad it was buried at the end of the article.

 My point in this post isn't to bash Catholic News Service for trying to do a gaming article. The author, a cathecist, supposedly has written about games for 20 years. The point I'm trying to make in highlighting this article's shortcomings is that when Catholics write about things like video games, it shouldn't be the same rehashed things that mainstream media has done to death.

We should be trying to find our own unique angle to bring to the story. Too often Catholic media tends to be like sheep, just following trends. We need to stand out, become unique, and lead the charge instead of just following old trends.

Hopefully CNS will put together better gaming articles in the future.

Mario Paint + Christian Music = Youtube Gold

If you are my age, you probably remember Mario Paint. While it may seem outdated nowadays, given the powerful art and music programs that many people have on their computer, it was a blast when I was kid. Draw your own pictures and make your own songs on the TV? Simply amazing.

And while Mario Paint may have faded away for many people, it seems that the music portion of it is alive and well. Do a search on Youtube and you'll find people still using Mario Paint (or the PC program Mario Paint Composer, which technically is a PC program, but it's a near replica of the SNES Mario Paint) to create covers of popular songs.

Which got me thinking, how many Christian songs have been "covered" using Mario Paint? Here are a few that I found on Youtube, along with a short description and what game SNES game they'd match up with best. I'll admit, I'm tempted to copy some of them to my iPhone: the quality is just that good. And while many of these songs aren't explicitly "Catholic," they still glorify God, and that's something we can all get behind.



My favorite part of Jars of Clay's Liquid is the drums. And I think they are faithfully converted in this song.
Game match: Mega Man X.




Red is a great Catholic rock band. Kayla from Sirius XM's The Message introduced me to the band when she appeared on Lino Rulli's The Catholic Guy Show a few years ago.
Game match: Any fight scene from a Japanese RPG.



Kudos to this composer for getting the guitars to sound great in Switchfoot's Meant to Live. Game match: For some reason, I keep thinking this would sound great in Killer Instinct.



I wanted to feature something from Matt Maher, who might be the most well-known Catholic musician in Christian music circles, but all I could find was this medley. He pops up at 1:23. Game match: Background music to standard RPG towns and maps.



And what feature on Catholic music would be complete without Ave Maria? If I could, I'd sub in this song for the Opera scene in Final Fantasy VI. Actually, finding Christian music that had been redone in Mario Paint was a little difficult. I have the sheet music to Matt Maher's "Your Grace is Enough" and when my new copy of Mario Paint arrives in the mail sometime in the next few days, I know how I'm spending my free time!