If Six Days in Fallujah has shown us anything, it’s that the general public still does not take gaming seriously.

The controversy surrounding the game stems from the belief that a video game can never communicate the horrors of war. They, the critics, believe Six Days would merely trivialize the bloody event by turning it into entertainment.

What the general public fails to realize, though, is that games not all games are there for mindless entertainment. No, many games are an experience with emotional ups and downs that players can empathize with and even learn from. To claim that games can not communicate complex emotions of remorse, respect, or sadness is downright ignorant and insulting.

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One of my dear friends, who I am now gravely worried about, recently purchased The Sims 3. When he told me the “great news,” I simply responded by telling him that I was unaware that he became a woman, excuse the politically incorrect metaphor.

But really, what is so great about The Sims?

Besides, once you played the first Sims, you’ve essentially played them all.

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With England out of the picture, and Russia desperately trying to hold its lines, the United States is left to defend itself against a mainland invasion.

June 6, 1944, D-Day. Nazi Germany uses recently conquered Greenland to launch the most massive amphibious assault in the history of man. Traversing through a stormy Atlantic, Hitler’s forces land on the eastern shores of Canada and parts of the United States. As the American and Canadian defenses are bombarded, German and Italian paratroopers drop behind enemy lines. Axis forces slowly battle their way through, and Hitler begins to smell blood as he has Washington D.C. within his sights.

Now there’s a World War II game I would like to play.

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The Nintendo Wii ignited a popular fascination with gaming. Its motion-based controls appeared to be the future. With Microsoft and Sony both developing their own answers to the Wii, it certainly appears that motion controls are now going to be around for a long time.

While many are excited for this, real gamers are left weeping. To real gamers, the idea of having to deal with these gimmicky devices is as appealing as rubbing shards of glass in one’s eyes.

With that painful imagery aside, let me just say that classic controllers > those things that make you move and wave your hands in an awkward fashion. That is not fun. That is just stupid.

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The Internet has a lot more utility than just porn…believe it or not. What started off as a great tool for communication has evolved into a Wal-Mart-esque center for, literally, everything. And while this convenience is great to us, to many businesses they’re forced to make drastic changes just to stay alive.

Many newspaper, magazine, and other printing-reliant industries have already made the switch from printing texts, to simply posting them online because readers have found it much easier to use their web browsers instead of their mail boxes.

So what’s next? My bet is on television, and to be honest, it’s about time.

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We’ve heard it all before, MMORPG “X” will be the “WoW killer.” Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars (Galaxies) are just some of the big names that have failed to live up to this billing, which reminds us just how dominate Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has become.

However, as the game approaches its 5 year anniversary, we’re also reminded that nothing lasts forever.

So, exactly how long can Blizzard keep subscribers interested in the game?

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One of the biggest announcements coming from EA at E3, unsurprisingly was related to their famed Madden franchise. And there is no doubt that their plans to include playable online franchises in a 32 player league are exciting.

Lately though, it seems that newer installments of these sports games from companies like EA, Konami, and 2K, have been lacking new features.

Instead, as the 2010 series of sports games come out, I’m afraid that this lack of ingenuity will lead to each successive game being nothing more than a glorified graphical and roster update.

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Disc formatting was all the rage back in the 90s. Discs made cassettes obsolete. They outmoded tapes. And they enshrined those good ole’ fashioned game cartridges as relics of the past.

However, with the Internet so readily available and unimaginable amounts of data so easily accessible, will the disc, and any other physical memory storing device for that matter, eventually give way to a future of online distribution?

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