Month: September 2010

Death of SP

With the advent of social games and more console connectivity there is a noticeable trend of packaging more games with cooperative and competitive multiplayer features. This is a great development in the game world because supporting a wider range of play styles can facilitate a larger audience. Friends can play with other friends who get excited and draw even more friends into the loop. Creating a community can extend the life of a product through expansion packs and micro-transactions and even simply keep fans around long enough to be excited for a sequel.

One thing that concerns me, however, is that there seems to be this line of thought that single player gaming is dying. There are people that believe that multiplayer is the future and everything else will fall by the wayside. This is simply not the case.

On speaking to current trends it is easy to see the success of World of Warcraft and Facebook as a platform. Let’s ignore the stagnation of the mobile and PC gaming markets for now. What we are left with are consoles- the core of the game platform business. There are clear examples of games receiving better critical and popular acclaim because of multiplayer modes. Grand Theft Auto 4 is a sprawling solo experience but you can play with and against friends in a cops and robbers mode. Almost all first-person shooters have cooperative play and various competitive modes, some even going so far as to focus on multiplayer and packaging a very weak solo campaign. These points all create a great case for why multiplayer gaming is here to stay but to swing wildly in the opposite direction and say single player is dying is being reactionary. A look at recent games awarded Game of the Year by popular outlets reveals Batman: Arkham Asylum, Oblivion, and even Bioshock, which is a first-person shooter that forwent a multiplayer mode altogether. Surely these types of game experiences are here to stay as well.

Aside from examining the current market we can think about why people play games to begin with. Entertainment has a long history of solitary and social applications. People can watch movies in groups and listen to music at parties but that doesn’t prevent doing these activities alone. Man is a social creature, to be sure. That is exactly the reason people turn to media when they are bored and alone. Curling up with a good book is a traditional experience- why should curling up with a good game be any different?

Mexican Chorizo

Mexican ChorizoMy girlfriend says she likes Mexicans because they’re funny. I’m not sure if that’s racist but I know one thing that isn’t funny – Mexican chorizo. It’s a pale imitation of the proper Spanish styled sausage and is more of a soft sausage mush with chorizo flavoring than the actual thing.

For a little background, chorizo is a sausage originating in Spain made from good cuts of chopped pork and pork fat. It is usually seasoned with salt, paprika, garlic, and some herbs and often has a smoky flavor. You can find small thin links of sausage or larger versions depending on the usage, but since it is cured it is usually sliced and eaten at room temperature- perfect for tapas with bread and cheese. When I was in Spain you could find chorizo in all manner of grocery stores and cafes. Growing up in Miami, I am accustomed to the many Cuban dishes that use the small sausage for its strong seasoning. I can make a mean picadillo using chorizo as the secret ingredient.

Proper Chorizo

So when I moved to Los Angeles I was delighted to see all the food trucks selling chorizo tacos or huevos con chorizo or papas. I had no idea that Mexican culture had embraced the sausage to such an extent but I was sorely disappointed when I tasted the local flavor. Mexican chorizo is heavily sauced and minced into unrecognizable portions then mixed in with other foods. This didn’t taste anything like what I was used to and for the last few years I would eat chorizo sparingly, blindly hoping that I would stumble upon something halfway authentic.

The answer came recently when I wanted to pick up some chorizo for a garbage plate party. Garbage plates are… well, maybe they warrant a separate post, this time on the positive side of the spectrum. But back to the point, standing in a Mexican grocery store because the Cuban market I took for granted had closed, I was surrounded by packages of large uncooked sausages labeled ‘chorizo’. I was bewildered at what I was looking at. I realize that you can probably buy authentic chorizo uncooked instead of cured but it was more than that. These sausages were phony. They started with the worst cuts of pork and tendons, which of course required the meat to be finely ground, had the salt and garlic but usually skipped the paprika, and tossed in some food coloring to compensate. Mexican chorizo is commonly made from cheaper ingredients and runs about a quarter of the price of even American made spanish styled sausages.

Mexican Chorizo

So now I need to begin the task of finding out where I can buy good chorizo again. I am seriously considering having it shipped from Spain. Maybe I can get my brother to bring a bunch with him when he moves from there back to the states. And next time I am at a taco truck considering between my options of carne asada, carnitas, al pastor, and chorizo, I will know better. And Mexicans should too.