Today you will be named dad of the year. This unprecedented and, in our eyes perhaps overly hasty decision, will come on the heels of your making a batch of home-made ice cream for your daughter, just ‘cause.
It will not take into account the various counts of racketeering, fraud, homicide, accessory to homicide, attempted homicide and orphan rape that you are currently under investigation for.
We cannot say for certain that these charges will lead to your eventual expulsion from the hallowed group of Dads of the Year, but we can say, more or less for sure, that you’ll probably be seeing a lot less of your kids in the not so distant future. So start making those moments count. Maybe you could do something fun with them, like learn to fashion shivs out of the various objects you find around the house. Or experiment with how much stuff you can pack into your rectums as a team. Just a thought.
Congratulations Dad of the Year!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: The Anti-OCD Game!
My family has a history of obsessive compulsive disorder. My brother was diagnosed with it in middle school, and endured a hellish battle with medication and therapy which eventually lead to him moving past the symptoms, learning to make them into a positive form of structure in his life. My mother likely had similar symptoms as a young woman, but coming from an era where psychoactive medication was less likely to be prescribed than electric shock and an educational framework where barbaric conditioning outweighed therapeutic concerns. She still shows a number of obsessive compulsive traits today.
I never really showed any symptoms, myself, nothing concrete. But when I’m placed in a structured, objective oriented environment I find myself compelled to complete the objectives as quickly and cleanly as possible. If I think things are going to be tough, or just untenably difficult, I’ll restart to an earlier time when I have more control over the circumstances surrounding me. I get pissed off when games don’t let me save wherever I please, or worse have an arbitrary set of checkpoints that just record whatever you have on your at the time.
The end result of this is that I hate improvising in games. Hate, hate, hate it. Or at least I used to.
A decade of multiplayer competition has liberated me somewhat from my puritanical concerns. The rush of killing three people with one clip, dropping your empty assault rifle for an SMG and mowing down another three before charging round a corner to take your last foe down with a knife in Call of Duty is a great incentive to make you want to improvise more often. And while circumstances such as the ones I just described far more often “almost happen” or “completely fail to happen,” they’re still so mystical, even in their half-formed states, that they’re so, so very worth it to pursue.
But they’re stressful to seek as well. Those sort of serendipitous collections of events don’t usually emerge from careful planning, they come as a result of chaotic, unexpected and frequently reset circumstances. Defeating that tough opponent might happen only once in a multiplayer game, and it’ll be a hurried, ugly affair without finality. The experience will still be cool, but it won’t have the sense of permanence and accomplishment that a similar experience in a single player game might provide.
And simulating such a chaotic environment in a single player game is incredibly difficult. Make the stakes too high, the game becomes stupidly frustrating. Too low, it’s a pointless jaunt. Make the system too unforgiving, the game is a pile of dross, too easy and it’s made for children. These are the challenges facing people who carefully craft experiences where you’re supposed to be lead to specific solutions for challenges. Providing an open ended experience, where unexpected things can happen and lead to solutions has to account for all these issues and the framework to generate new and unexpected problems is that much more difficult.
The games capable of rendering this serendipitous chaos are few and far between. Some of them are even kind of weak tea about it. Red Faction: Guerilla was great at it, creating some incredible scenes of destruction and giving players plenty of freedom while putting through rigid paces. And Far Cry 2’s buddy rescue system padded the game’s occasionally punishing system of challenges, turning death into an experience. But all of these games had fail states, and each time you encountered a fail state you would be forced to restart.
Enter Dead Rising 2.
Dead Rising 2 is one of the rare games intended to completely disarm the compulsive, completeist behavior that besets most gamers. Most games insist that you save early and often, and return to these saves. They start out slow and easy, then bit by bit unfold into challenging tapestries of experience as you develop a skillset you previously lacked. There are certain rules, rules about permanence, achievement and the elimination of fail-states.
Dead Rising 2 violates these seemingly sacrosanct rules. The game is more than happy to force you into failure. It delights in the near miss, in making you split your attention while travelling from place to place and lose track of time. Most games take great pains to keep you from encountering such scenarios. They’ll insist that you go certain places at certain times and, should you fail to do so, they’ll teleport you there. They’ll always give you ample time to complete a given task and, should you somehow fail, they’ll return you to a time before events where you can accomplish all time critical goals without issue.
Not so much Dead Rising 2.
I’ve never seen in recent memory a game quite so willing to let me die horribly or fail so abjectly at a simple objective as Dead Rising 2. I’m constantly running around, making appointments, tracking down medicine. If I get distracted for even a moment, if I fail to check my watch, I’ll miss a critical juncture and the game will go all ex-girlfriend on me, call me a dumbass and put me back to square one.
But, unlike ex-girlfriends, Dead Rising 2 really isn’t that big a bitch about the whole thing. It actually kind of encourages me to start anew, to try and learn from your mistakes and come back bigger, better and stronger. See, each time you restart the game in Dead Rising 2 (and you will restart the game, my pretties, time and time again) you retain all of your experience, your recipes and your money. You lose your items, sure, and your story progress, but in its place you have scads and scads of stat improvements, special powers and nifty items which can be made with a wide variety of materials readily available from the very beginning of the game. You also get lots of lovely inventory slots, all the better to carry said items in.
The end result is that each time you restart the game you come back better, faster stronger. Sometimes your story progress will be a strong argument against restarting the game, especially after you clear out a few psychopaths and get some neat items like motorcycles and light machine guns. But early on, as you rush around an unfamiliar set of casinos and mall structures, it’s actually very encouraging, and it makes you want to take risks. For example, I carried a critical character, a medic with medicine for my daughter that I’d have to bring back to the safe room in once piece if I wanted her to live, into a boss fight against T.K.. I had no idea what it would consist of, if I’d even be able to carry my followers through combat. Turns out I couldn’t, and Sven, my stalwart physician, with a sliver of health, just barely survived his time out-of-zone during my train battle.
Following the fight, he ran up to me and I nursed him back to health with orange juice and coffee. I gave him a fresh assault rifle and we started on our journey back to my precious daughter with his much-needed medicine. We arrived seconds before the deadline for her receiving medicine.
In a game where the stakes were higher I never would’ve felt inclined to take so many risks with so many objectives. I probably would’ve just reloaded to before the boss fight and tried to run back and forth with Sven, cut the clock as close as I could and hopefully survive the entire ordeal. But because of that magic reset button I didn’t really stand to lose a lot by attempting to carry Sven back home. In fact, I stood to gain quite a bit by accomplishing so many objectives at once.
The end result of these constant, pressing goals and noteworthy consequences for failure which don’t really set you back so much as put you back into the fight tougher and wiser is a game that walks a fine line that, to the best of my knowledge, none have ever attempted before. It introduces a game with a constant sense of urgency which encourages you to take risks by buffering against and, in some cases even encouraging, failure.
Dead Rising 2 isn’t the “perfect zombie game,” but it is perhaps the most cinematic I’ve ever played. And it forces me to do things I love to do in games, things like improvise and experiment. Occasionally I find myself falling back into my old patterns of saving frequently and reloading constantly when I want to beat an especially difficult boss fight and I feel that I’ve got the tools I need to do so at my disposal. But just as often I’ll walk away from threats and just try to survive events. I’ll take risks and gamble to try and defeat enemies that I’d usually run from just because I want to see if I can do it. I’ll put myself in bad situations and improvise solutions, learning loads about the game and getting a cool story out of it at the same time. I’ll let go of my anxiety, even as I watch the clock, and lose myself as I slam a bat with nails hammered into it into a zombie’s face, laughing gleefully all the while.
I never really showed any symptoms, myself, nothing concrete. But when I’m placed in a structured, objective oriented environment I find myself compelled to complete the objectives as quickly and cleanly as possible. If I think things are going to be tough, or just untenably difficult, I’ll restart to an earlier time when I have more control over the circumstances surrounding me. I get pissed off when games don’t let me save wherever I please, or worse have an arbitrary set of checkpoints that just record whatever you have on your at the time.
The end result of this is that I hate improvising in games. Hate, hate, hate it. Or at least I used to.
A decade of multiplayer competition has liberated me somewhat from my puritanical concerns. The rush of killing three people with one clip, dropping your empty assault rifle for an SMG and mowing down another three before charging round a corner to take your last foe down with a knife in Call of Duty is a great incentive to make you want to improvise more often. And while circumstances such as the ones I just described far more often “almost happen” or “completely fail to happen,” they’re still so mystical, even in their half-formed states, that they’re so, so very worth it to pursue.
But they’re stressful to seek as well. Those sort of serendipitous collections of events don’t usually emerge from careful planning, they come as a result of chaotic, unexpected and frequently reset circumstances. Defeating that tough opponent might happen only once in a multiplayer game, and it’ll be a hurried, ugly affair without finality. The experience will still be cool, but it won’t have the sense of permanence and accomplishment that a similar experience in a single player game might provide.
And simulating such a chaotic environment in a single player game is incredibly difficult. Make the stakes too high, the game becomes stupidly frustrating. Too low, it’s a pointless jaunt. Make the system too unforgiving, the game is a pile of dross, too easy and it’s made for children. These are the challenges facing people who carefully craft experiences where you’re supposed to be lead to specific solutions for challenges. Providing an open ended experience, where unexpected things can happen and lead to solutions has to account for all these issues and the framework to generate new and unexpected problems is that much more difficult.
The games capable of rendering this serendipitous chaos are few and far between. Some of them are even kind of weak tea about it. Red Faction: Guerilla was great at it, creating some incredible scenes of destruction and giving players plenty of freedom while putting through rigid paces. And Far Cry 2’s buddy rescue system padded the game’s occasionally punishing system of challenges, turning death into an experience. But all of these games had fail states, and each time you encountered a fail state you would be forced to restart.
Enter Dead Rising 2.
Dead Rising 2 is one of the rare games intended to completely disarm the compulsive, completeist behavior that besets most gamers. Most games insist that you save early and often, and return to these saves. They start out slow and easy, then bit by bit unfold into challenging tapestries of experience as you develop a skillset you previously lacked. There are certain rules, rules about permanence, achievement and the elimination of fail-states.
Dead Rising 2 violates these seemingly sacrosanct rules. The game is more than happy to force you into failure. It delights in the near miss, in making you split your attention while travelling from place to place and lose track of time. Most games take great pains to keep you from encountering such scenarios. They’ll insist that you go certain places at certain times and, should you fail to do so, they’ll teleport you there. They’ll always give you ample time to complete a given task and, should you somehow fail, they’ll return you to a time before events where you can accomplish all time critical goals without issue.
Not so much Dead Rising 2.
I’ve never seen in recent memory a game quite so willing to let me die horribly or fail so abjectly at a simple objective as Dead Rising 2. I’m constantly running around, making appointments, tracking down medicine. If I get distracted for even a moment, if I fail to check my watch, I’ll miss a critical juncture and the game will go all ex-girlfriend on me, call me a dumbass and put me back to square one.
But, unlike ex-girlfriends, Dead Rising 2 really isn’t that big a bitch about the whole thing. It actually kind of encourages me to start anew, to try and learn from your mistakes and come back bigger, better and stronger. See, each time you restart the game in Dead Rising 2 (and you will restart the game, my pretties, time and time again) you retain all of your experience, your recipes and your money. You lose your items, sure, and your story progress, but in its place you have scads and scads of stat improvements, special powers and nifty items which can be made with a wide variety of materials readily available from the very beginning of the game. You also get lots of lovely inventory slots, all the better to carry said items in.
The end result is that each time you restart the game you come back better, faster stronger. Sometimes your story progress will be a strong argument against restarting the game, especially after you clear out a few psychopaths and get some neat items like motorcycles and light machine guns. But early on, as you rush around an unfamiliar set of casinos and mall structures, it’s actually very encouraging, and it makes you want to take risks. For example, I carried a critical character, a medic with medicine for my daughter that I’d have to bring back to the safe room in once piece if I wanted her to live, into a boss fight against T.K.. I had no idea what it would consist of, if I’d even be able to carry my followers through combat. Turns out I couldn’t, and Sven, my stalwart physician, with a sliver of health, just barely survived his time out-of-zone during my train battle.
Following the fight, he ran up to me and I nursed him back to health with orange juice and coffee. I gave him a fresh assault rifle and we started on our journey back to my precious daughter with his much-needed medicine. We arrived seconds before the deadline for her receiving medicine.
In a game where the stakes were higher I never would’ve felt inclined to take so many risks with so many objectives. I probably would’ve just reloaded to before the boss fight and tried to run back and forth with Sven, cut the clock as close as I could and hopefully survive the entire ordeal. But because of that magic reset button I didn’t really stand to lose a lot by attempting to carry Sven back home. In fact, I stood to gain quite a bit by accomplishing so many objectives at once.
The end result of these constant, pressing goals and noteworthy consequences for failure which don’t really set you back so much as put you back into the fight tougher and wiser is a game that walks a fine line that, to the best of my knowledge, none have ever attempted before. It introduces a game with a constant sense of urgency which encourages you to take risks by buffering against and, in some cases even encouraging, failure.
Dead Rising 2 isn’t the “perfect zombie game,” but it is perhaps the most cinematic I’ve ever played. And it forces me to do things I love to do in games, things like improvise and experiment. Occasionally I find myself falling back into my old patterns of saving frequently and reloading constantly when I want to beat an especially difficult boss fight and I feel that I’ve got the tools I need to do so at my disposal. But just as often I’ll walk away from threats and just try to survive events. I’ll take risks and gamble to try and defeat enemies that I’d usually run from just because I want to see if I can do it. I’ll put myself in bad situations and improvise solutions, learning loads about the game and getting a cool story out of it at the same time. I’ll let go of my anxiety, even as I watch the clock, and lose myself as I slam a bat with nails hammered into it into a zombie’s face, laughing gleefully all the while.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Congratulations on Expanding Your Cultural Horizons!
Everyone loves culture. Music, plays, books, movies. Whatever. Who doesn’t like being entertained? Well, you apparently.
All you ever really do is react aggressively against the new things you encounter. The only cultural input you actually accept is from the various tent-poles of American culture that have long populated our landscape, things like country music and action movies.
You only really like to engage cultural institutions if you know for a fact that they’ve been vetted for, that they’re certifiably American, which is itself a bit of a misnomer since American culture is heavily reliant on a mish-mash of cultural influences. The point is that every time your wife asks you to come out and have some new experience with you you always tell her to go fuck herself.
So far you’ve instructed your wife to masturbate when she asked you to attend the following events: an Anamanaguchi show, a Rick Ross concert, a Sufjan Stevens musical extravaganza and a Steve Martin routine. The point, here, is that you’re kind of anti-American and really just an old fogie at heart. And today your wife is going to prove it.
“Let’s go see an opera,” she’ll say.
“FUCK YOU WOMAN!” you’ll scream. But immediately afterwards you’ll feel kind of curious. “What’s the opera?”
She’ll smile at you. “Ave Maria. It’s about the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock.”
You’ll leap up from your seat, knocking over your bowl of cereal and upending your chair in the process.
“Let’s do it!” you’ll declare, pumping your fist into the sky. She’ll smile slyly and order the tickets off the internet.
When the two of you settle into your seats you’ll occasionally stand up and shout things like “Yeah, fucking America” and chant “USA” a few times while waiting for the show to start, but once it actually starts you’ll sit in your seat in silent, rapt attention.
The entire presentation will demand your attention. Even though they’ll be speaking Dago or some shit for the entire show you’ll be completely unable to look away. The experience will be singularly captivating. Towards the end you’ll stand up and shout “AVE FUCKING MARIA YEAH!” and people will actually applaud your enthusiasm, since most operas are pretty boring and it’ll actual liven up the show that you just found so interesting.
Your wife will be pleased with herself. At least, at first. Within a week she’ll be sick shitless of you constantly insisting that the two of you go to see opera at every possible opportunity, having gone to three shows inside six days. Finally she’ll just tell you she’s gay so that you’ll freak out until she makes you watch her fuck a chick, which it turns out you’ll actually like a lot because that shit is hot, and it always has been.
Congratulations on Expanding Your Cultural Horizons!
All you ever really do is react aggressively against the new things you encounter. The only cultural input you actually accept is from the various tent-poles of American culture that have long populated our landscape, things like country music and action movies.
You only really like to engage cultural institutions if you know for a fact that they’ve been vetted for, that they’re certifiably American, which is itself a bit of a misnomer since American culture is heavily reliant on a mish-mash of cultural influences. The point is that every time your wife asks you to come out and have some new experience with you you always tell her to go fuck herself.
So far you’ve instructed your wife to masturbate when she asked you to attend the following events: an Anamanaguchi show, a Rick Ross concert, a Sufjan Stevens musical extravaganza and a Steve Martin routine. The point, here, is that you’re kind of anti-American and really just an old fogie at heart. And today your wife is going to prove it.
“Let’s go see an opera,” she’ll say.
“FUCK YOU WOMAN!” you’ll scream. But immediately afterwards you’ll feel kind of curious. “What’s the opera?”
She’ll smile at you. “Ave Maria. It’s about the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock.”
You’ll leap up from your seat, knocking over your bowl of cereal and upending your chair in the process.
“Let’s do it!” you’ll declare, pumping your fist into the sky. She’ll smile slyly and order the tickets off the internet.
When the two of you settle into your seats you’ll occasionally stand up and shout things like “Yeah, fucking America” and chant “USA” a few times while waiting for the show to start, but once it actually starts you’ll sit in your seat in silent, rapt attention.
The entire presentation will demand your attention. Even though they’ll be speaking Dago or some shit for the entire show you’ll be completely unable to look away. The experience will be singularly captivating. Towards the end you’ll stand up and shout “AVE FUCKING MARIA YEAH!” and people will actually applaud your enthusiasm, since most operas are pretty boring and it’ll actual liven up the show that you just found so interesting.
Your wife will be pleased with herself. At least, at first. Within a week she’ll be sick shitless of you constantly insisting that the two of you go to see opera at every possible opportunity, having gone to three shows inside six days. Finally she’ll just tell you she’s gay so that you’ll freak out until she makes you watch her fuck a chick, which it turns out you’ll actually like a lot because that shit is hot, and it always has been.
Congratulations on Expanding Your Cultural Horizons!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Congratulations Unconventional Game Show Host!
Yesterday you were just another douchebag monster made of heroin who aspired to be on game shows. Today you’re a star of the strangest variety: a monster made of heroin who is pretty good at trivia but not very lucky. And tomorrow you’re going to have some amazingly good fortune.
You’re going to get a call on your phone, the old land line that never seems to ring anymore. You’ll be watching your performance on Jeopardy!, smarting from your harsh defeat and sipping off a PBR. You’ll think about going for a jog to clear your head, or maybe packing and smoking a bowl just to chill out. But then you’ll pick up the phone and your whole world will change.
The voice on the other line will be vaguely familiar. “James Tannington,” he’ll announce to you. “We spoke a few days ago.”
Your mind will snap the pieces together. “You’re the producer guy!” you’ll declare. You’ll still be a little drunk.
“Rightroo son. How’d you like to be on television? Again, I mean.”
You’ll stammer for a few seconds. “Uhh. Err.” You’ll drop the phone, then pick it up again. The producer will be silent. It’ll be clear that this happens to him quite often. After a painful few seconds you’ll finally manage to squeeze out a “Sure!”
“Good,” he’ll say. Then he’ll rattle off an address in L.A.. He’ll tell you your flight number, your confirmation information and how to get on the plane despite being a monster made of heroin. Then he’ll tell you when you should be at wardrobe and who you should call if you have any problems with anything.
“Thanks,” you’ll stammer.
Thirty hours, one flight and three car-rides later you’ll be in a make-up chair on a sound stage in Los Angeles, having your already heroin-pale skin powdered and refined so that you’ll look right on camera.
“This is kind of new for me,” your make-up artist will admit. “It’s kind of nice, though.” You’ll smile at her and, for the first time since you’ve met her, she’ll smile like her every day isn’t a dehumanizing hell.
Then you’ll be shuffled out in front of a camera in a suit, into a test set. The producer will be standing there tapping his foot. “Ready?” he’ll ask, but he’ll already know the answer is really no, and won’t care. He’ll push you in front of the camera and just watch as you immediately grasp the concept of a teleprompter and realize what they’ve done: they’ve given you your own game-show.
It’ll be called “Kick the Habit,” centered around the fundamental novelty of you being a heroin monster who loves trivia, and it’ll be a huge hit for fifty two episodes, the full two-season run you’ll shoot prior to your arrest for being a monster made out of heroin, which as it turns out is pretty illegal.
Congratulations Unconventional Game Show Host!
You’re going to get a call on your phone, the old land line that never seems to ring anymore. You’ll be watching your performance on Jeopardy!, smarting from your harsh defeat and sipping off a PBR. You’ll think about going for a jog to clear your head, or maybe packing and smoking a bowl just to chill out. But then you’ll pick up the phone and your whole world will change.
The voice on the other line will be vaguely familiar. “James Tannington,” he’ll announce to you. “We spoke a few days ago.”
Your mind will snap the pieces together. “You’re the producer guy!” you’ll declare. You’ll still be a little drunk.
“Rightroo son. How’d you like to be on television? Again, I mean.”
You’ll stammer for a few seconds. “Uhh. Err.” You’ll drop the phone, then pick it up again. The producer will be silent. It’ll be clear that this happens to him quite often. After a painful few seconds you’ll finally manage to squeeze out a “Sure!”
“Good,” he’ll say. Then he’ll rattle off an address in L.A.. He’ll tell you your flight number, your confirmation information and how to get on the plane despite being a monster made of heroin. Then he’ll tell you when you should be at wardrobe and who you should call if you have any problems with anything.
“Thanks,” you’ll stammer.
Thirty hours, one flight and three car-rides later you’ll be in a make-up chair on a sound stage in Los Angeles, having your already heroin-pale skin powdered and refined so that you’ll look right on camera.
“This is kind of new for me,” your make-up artist will admit. “It’s kind of nice, though.” You’ll smile at her and, for the first time since you’ve met her, she’ll smile like her every day isn’t a dehumanizing hell.
Then you’ll be shuffled out in front of a camera in a suit, into a test set. The producer will be standing there tapping his foot. “Ready?” he’ll ask, but he’ll already know the answer is really no, and won’t care. He’ll push you in front of the camera and just watch as you immediately grasp the concept of a teleprompter and realize what they’ve done: they’ve given you your own game-show.
It’ll be called “Kick the Habit,” centered around the fundamental novelty of you being a heroin monster who loves trivia, and it’ll be a huge hit for fifty two episodes, the full two-season run you’ll shoot prior to your arrest for being a monster made out of heroin, which as it turns out is pretty illegal.
Congratulations Unconventional Game Show Host!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Congratulations Dilettante!
Today you’re one of those fucking assholes who knows a little bit about everything but doesn’t really actually shit about shit. This will become readily apparent to the rest of the general population when, during a bus ride, someone mentions Aqua Teen Hunger Force near you on the bus. You’ll realize you have something to contribute to the conversation, so you’ll ahem, tap the speaker on the shoulder, an attractive young woman riddled with piercings, and open your retarded mouth.
“That show isn’t very realistic,” you’ll loudly declare.
“What?” she’ll say, staring at you like you’re insane.
“Super Size Me is a much better take on the fast food industry.”
She’ll give you a once over, nod politely, say “Thanks” and then turn back to her friends, talking, more quietly now, about how she wants to vacation in North Africa.
“Belize is supposed to be lovely this time of year,” you’ll whisper into her ear, your breath tickling the back of her neck as you speak. She’ll all but jump at first, before rotating slowly in her seat to look at you.
“Please fuck off,” she’ll say, her eyes burning with hatred.
“Fuck is a shorthand for fornicating under consent of the king, generated from a royal decree following the ravages of the Black Plague during the Dark Ages, aimed at repopulating Europe,” you’ll reply, staring at an area just to the left of her head.
Her friend will shake his head, stand up and join in.
“I’m almost positive that’s only one of several unproven etymologies. Could you please leave us alone?”
You won’t be perturbed, however. This isn’t your first time at the rodeo.
“Etymologists study bugs,” you’ll smugly declare. “Or cookies. I’m not completely sure.”
The girl will stare at you once again. Her hand will quiver, her muscles straining to keep from slapping you. She’ll open her mouth, close it, then open it again. She’ll be struggling to decide just how to get you to leave her alone for the rest of her life when it dawns on her.
She’ll surge forward, crashing her body into yours and press her mouth into your face, aggressively kissing you. Her tongue will flow inside your mouth and root around, carefully examining each of your fillings, seeking some sort of purchase it won’t find. Then she’ll push you away and politely say, “Please leave.”
Another successful romantic interlude!
Congratulations Dilettante!
“That show isn’t very realistic,” you’ll loudly declare.
“What?” she’ll say, staring at you like you’re insane.
“Super Size Me is a much better take on the fast food industry.”
She’ll give you a once over, nod politely, say “Thanks” and then turn back to her friends, talking, more quietly now, about how she wants to vacation in North Africa.
“Belize is supposed to be lovely this time of year,” you’ll whisper into her ear, your breath tickling the back of her neck as you speak. She’ll all but jump at first, before rotating slowly in her seat to look at you.
“Please fuck off,” she’ll say, her eyes burning with hatred.
“Fuck is a shorthand for fornicating under consent of the king, generated from a royal decree following the ravages of the Black Plague during the Dark Ages, aimed at repopulating Europe,” you’ll reply, staring at an area just to the left of her head.
Her friend will shake his head, stand up and join in.
“I’m almost positive that’s only one of several unproven etymologies. Could you please leave us alone?”
You won’t be perturbed, however. This isn’t your first time at the rodeo.
“Etymologists study bugs,” you’ll smugly declare. “Or cookies. I’m not completely sure.”
The girl will stare at you once again. Her hand will quiver, her muscles straining to keep from slapping you. She’ll open her mouth, close it, then open it again. She’ll be struggling to decide just how to get you to leave her alone for the rest of her life when it dawns on her.
She’ll surge forward, crashing her body into yours and press her mouth into your face, aggressively kissing you. Her tongue will flow inside your mouth and root around, carefully examining each of your fillings, seeking some sort of purchase it won’t find. Then she’ll push you away and politely say, “Please leave.”
Another successful romantic interlude!
Congratulations Dilettante!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Congratulations Aggressive Lover!
You’re very aggressive in bed, which some people really like. Some people. Not everyone.
For example, when you shove the dildo you always carry into people’s butts without asking, some people like that. They’re all porn stars, and it’s because their rectum has been gauged by penises that are freakishly large and possessed of chemically induced boners.
But the majority of people respond to having a foreign object crammed up their butt hole with surprise, shock, distress and a feeling of betrayal. Also tremendous pain as soft tissues tear and blood rushes out to lubricate the passage of the foreign object into their colon.
Today you’re going to be sleeping with one of those people in a completely unconventional way.
You’ll have met her in a bar in downtown Seattle. “I see myself as being pretty GGG,” she’ll declare while looking at you slyly, to which you’ll honestly respond:
“I’m not sure what that means.”
She’ll laugh and think you’re kidding, inviting you back to her place for additional drinks and bareback sex. Smiling, she’ll lure you into her bedroom and start working your “downstairs business,” taking care to lubricate the entire area thoroughly. Then the two of you will start having sex.
“THIS IS FANTASTIC,” you’ll shout, because as an aggressive person you declare everything loudly. She’ll grunt.
“Try my ass,” she’ll mumble into her pillow. If you were more perceptive you would notice that she really wasn’t into it, but you won’t be. Otherwise we wouldn’t be writing this.
Smiling, you’ll remove your un-lubricated dildo from your bag and press it against her pooper.
“Whoa!” she’ll shout. “I meant your dick.”
“Oh,” you’ll say, suddenly getting the whole concept of buttsex for the first time. “Oh!”
You’ll remove your still-slick penis from her vagina and ram it right up her asshole, grunting with the effort. She’ll make her first affirmation of pleasure for the entire day and smile up at you. “Good job,” she’ll say, stretching our her body luxuriously.
You’ll thrust tentatively at first, probing the new experience, and she’ll love it. But after a few minutes of careful pacing and self-reflection you’ll start back on your rhythm-less, punishing take on thrusting a penis into a hole.
“Stop that,” she’ll say, grunting with your exertions. You’ll think she’s role-playing and just starting forcing your junk into her more and more erratic and forcefully. After a few seconds she’ll clench her asshole tight, and when you attempt to withdraw you’ll yank your penis, resulting in intense pain.
“AGH!” you’ll shout. You’ll try to draw out, and suddenly realize your predicament.
“Pull out of me,” she’ll tell you, looking you in the eye. “Slowly.”
You’ll do so, wincing with the effort.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment,” she’ll say, refusing to make eye contact with you. You’ll do so, quietly, shamefully, realizing for the first time just how miserably bad at sex you are. As you shuffle out the door she’ll shake her head at you and you, still feeling the effects of torque on your penis, will reflect on what it really means to be hurt during sex, and whether or not having a sand-paper like penis really justifies your constant bragging about your sexual prowess, despite your lack of any repeat customers during your decade of sexual activity.
Congratulations Aggressive Lover!
For example, when you shove the dildo you always carry into people’s butts without asking, some people like that. They’re all porn stars, and it’s because their rectum has been gauged by penises that are freakishly large and possessed of chemically induced boners.
But the majority of people respond to having a foreign object crammed up their butt hole with surprise, shock, distress and a feeling of betrayal. Also tremendous pain as soft tissues tear and blood rushes out to lubricate the passage of the foreign object into their colon.
Today you’re going to be sleeping with one of those people in a completely unconventional way.
You’ll have met her in a bar in downtown Seattle. “I see myself as being pretty GGG,” she’ll declare while looking at you slyly, to which you’ll honestly respond:
“I’m not sure what that means.”
She’ll laugh and think you’re kidding, inviting you back to her place for additional drinks and bareback sex. Smiling, she’ll lure you into her bedroom and start working your “downstairs business,” taking care to lubricate the entire area thoroughly. Then the two of you will start having sex.
“THIS IS FANTASTIC,” you’ll shout, because as an aggressive person you declare everything loudly. She’ll grunt.
“Try my ass,” she’ll mumble into her pillow. If you were more perceptive you would notice that she really wasn’t into it, but you won’t be. Otherwise we wouldn’t be writing this.
Smiling, you’ll remove your un-lubricated dildo from your bag and press it against her pooper.
“Whoa!” she’ll shout. “I meant your dick.”
“Oh,” you’ll say, suddenly getting the whole concept of buttsex for the first time. “Oh!”
You’ll remove your still-slick penis from her vagina and ram it right up her asshole, grunting with the effort. She’ll make her first affirmation of pleasure for the entire day and smile up at you. “Good job,” she’ll say, stretching our her body luxuriously.
You’ll thrust tentatively at first, probing the new experience, and she’ll love it. But after a few minutes of careful pacing and self-reflection you’ll start back on your rhythm-less, punishing take on thrusting a penis into a hole.
“Stop that,” she’ll say, grunting with your exertions. You’ll think she’s role-playing and just starting forcing your junk into her more and more erratic and forcefully. After a few seconds she’ll clench her asshole tight, and when you attempt to withdraw you’ll yank your penis, resulting in intense pain.
“AGH!” you’ll shout. You’ll try to draw out, and suddenly realize your predicament.
“Pull out of me,” she’ll tell you, looking you in the eye. “Slowly.”
You’ll do so, wincing with the effort.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment,” she’ll say, refusing to make eye contact with you. You’ll do so, quietly, shamefully, realizing for the first time just how miserably bad at sex you are. As you shuffle out the door she’ll shake her head at you and you, still feeling the effects of torque on your penis, will reflect on what it really means to be hurt during sex, and whether or not having a sand-paper like penis really justifies your constant bragging about your sexual prowess, despite your lack of any repeat customers during your decade of sexual activity.
Congratulations Aggressive Lover!
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Congratulations Heroin Monster!
You’re a monster made entirely of heroin (rar!) who has ravaged many a countryside in Europe. You’ve laid small towns to waste, ruined families and divided thousands upon thousands of bands over the years. You’ve also sparked some slight creativity over that time, mostly centered around the struggle of overcoming your clutches and recovering from the devastation you bring to people. Word is you also had a big hand in helping Darren Aronofsky craft Requiem for a Dream as well as several other films, completely unrelated to heroin. And you occasionally ravage third world countries and fuel, then devastate, their economies.
But none of this is what you wish you were doing. For as long as you’ve been able to remember you’ve always wanted to be a game show contestant. You’ve just never had the chance. You watch Jeopardy! constantly when you’re at home, and you attend quiz nights with startling frequency (they’re one of the better places to meet people who want to work with a monster made out of heroin) and you mail in letters, resumés and statements of purpose to television producers constantly.
Over the last four years none of it has borne fruit. It’s almost been enough to propel you towards a drug problem (irony!) but the purity of your goal has kept you strong. Quiz shows are your passion. They’re what you want to do with your life and what you’re good at. You know in your bones that you could be the next Mormon-guy-who-does-really-well-at-a-game-show, or the next person who does okay at a game show and takes home a bunch of money for being relatively smart. But you’ve never had the chance. Until today.
Today you’re going to step out of your apartment with the goal of giving some young people at a local bar some heroin. They’ll have called your cell phone and they’ll be expecting you to show up, but when you see the envelope, its pressed lettering declaring that you’re a contestant on Jeopardy!, you’ll call up those junkies and tell them to go find another fix because you’ve got to prepare for a quiz show. The junkies will then shake their fists in what they perceive to be the direction you’re in and then tromp off to do whatever it is junkies do when they’re not doing drugs (lazy, inept sex).
For the first time in your life you’ll feel like more than the sum of your parts which, remember, are made entirely of heroin and are actually pretty valuable from a commodities standpoint. You’ll be filled with hope, hope for the new possibilities this opportunity will open up for you. You’ll hop in your Prius drive all night to get from Columbus, Ohio to California. Then you’ll camp outside the studio in it, waiting twelve days and twelve nights for your shoot date, which will be fine for you because you’re a monster made of heroin and you don’t have to eat. Then you’ll go in and, in a rush of excitement, be a part of one of the highest rated Jeopardy! episodes in recent memory.
You’ll come in second, losing the final Jeopardy to a Jewish girl who answered only a handful of questions up to that point. You’ll still feel pretty good about your experience, but you’ll feel a little bad that you won’t get another chance to appear on such a show. The producers will too, and they’ll go back to their producer-rooms and start thinking of a way to get you back on the air. They’ll see money in your heroin-soaked hide, and they’ll want to tap into it.
Don’t worry, they’ll find a way.
Congratulations Heroin Monster!
But none of this is what you wish you were doing. For as long as you’ve been able to remember you’ve always wanted to be a game show contestant. You’ve just never had the chance. You watch Jeopardy! constantly when you’re at home, and you attend quiz nights with startling frequency (they’re one of the better places to meet people who want to work with a monster made out of heroin) and you mail in letters, resumés and statements of purpose to television producers constantly.
Over the last four years none of it has borne fruit. It’s almost been enough to propel you towards a drug problem (irony!) but the purity of your goal has kept you strong. Quiz shows are your passion. They’re what you want to do with your life and what you’re good at. You know in your bones that you could be the next Mormon-guy-who-does-really-well-at-a-game-show, or the next person who does okay at a game show and takes home a bunch of money for being relatively smart. But you’ve never had the chance. Until today.
Today you’re going to step out of your apartment with the goal of giving some young people at a local bar some heroin. They’ll have called your cell phone and they’ll be expecting you to show up, but when you see the envelope, its pressed lettering declaring that you’re a contestant on Jeopardy!, you’ll call up those junkies and tell them to go find another fix because you’ve got to prepare for a quiz show. The junkies will then shake their fists in what they perceive to be the direction you’re in and then tromp off to do whatever it is junkies do when they’re not doing drugs (lazy, inept sex).
For the first time in your life you’ll feel like more than the sum of your parts which, remember, are made entirely of heroin and are actually pretty valuable from a commodities standpoint. You’ll be filled with hope, hope for the new possibilities this opportunity will open up for you. You’ll hop in your Prius drive all night to get from Columbus, Ohio to California. Then you’ll camp outside the studio in it, waiting twelve days and twelve nights for your shoot date, which will be fine for you because you’re a monster made of heroin and you don’t have to eat. Then you’ll go in and, in a rush of excitement, be a part of one of the highest rated Jeopardy! episodes in recent memory.
You’ll come in second, losing the final Jeopardy to a Jewish girl who answered only a handful of questions up to that point. You’ll still feel pretty good about your experience, but you’ll feel a little bad that you won’t get another chance to appear on such a show. The producers will too, and they’ll go back to their producer-rooms and start thinking of a way to get you back on the air. They’ll see money in your heroin-soaked hide, and they’ll want to tap into it.
Don’t worry, they’ll find a way.
Congratulations Heroin Monster!
Monday, January 24, 2011
Congratulations Coffee Head!
You really like coffee. Like, a lot. So much so that you can’t go a morning without it.
“I’LL SUCK YOUR DICK!” you’ll shout at your husband as he emerges from the bathroom.
“Huh?” he’ll respond, legitimately confused.
“GET ME SOME FUCKING DUTCH BROTHERS, MOTHERFUCKER!” you’ll say, pulling on his hair while simultaneously groping his crotch.
“Oh…kay,” he’ll say, baffled both by your actions and the variety of stimuli his body is currently receiving. You’ll grab him by the tie and drag him to your Corolla, occasionally dragging your hand over his groin to remind him that you will, the moment coffee is within grasp, introduce his penis into the heaven that is your mouth.
He’ll roll out of your driveway and down Foster, trailing towards the always-packed Dutch Brother’s drive-through. While in line you’ll get impatient. You’ll unzip his fly and start working him with your hand, still not looking him in the eye.
“I just want to get this out of the way while we’re in line,” you’ll declare before moving your mouth over his penis and beginning the mechanical business of removing all of the semen from it as quickly as you can.
He’ll grunt and groan and occasionally remove the parking brake and let the car slide forward tentatively. He’ll even order while you blow him, barely containing his voice for the few seconds required to request a mocha for him and a large black coffee for you. He’ll finish as he receives the coffees, shivering with pleasure as the barista passes him the drinks.
You’ll immediately withdraw your mouth, the taste of him still fresh on your breath, and rip your coffee out his hand. You’ll gulp it down, relishing the scalding sensation on your tongue as it winds down your throat and into your stomach, filtering precious drug product into your body.
“Thanks honey,” you’ll say, kissing him on the cheek.
“No problem,” he’ll say, gasping as he pulls out into traffic, clutching his mocha to keep you from downing it in a single gulp, because you’re a junkie, and junkies cannot be trusted.
Congratulations Coffee Head!
“I’LL SUCK YOUR DICK!” you’ll shout at your husband as he emerges from the bathroom.
“Huh?” he’ll respond, legitimately confused.
“GET ME SOME FUCKING DUTCH BROTHERS, MOTHERFUCKER!” you’ll say, pulling on his hair while simultaneously groping his crotch.
“Oh…kay,” he’ll say, baffled both by your actions and the variety of stimuli his body is currently receiving. You’ll grab him by the tie and drag him to your Corolla, occasionally dragging your hand over his groin to remind him that you will, the moment coffee is within grasp, introduce his penis into the heaven that is your mouth.
He’ll roll out of your driveway and down Foster, trailing towards the always-packed Dutch Brother’s drive-through. While in line you’ll get impatient. You’ll unzip his fly and start working him with your hand, still not looking him in the eye.
“I just want to get this out of the way while we’re in line,” you’ll declare before moving your mouth over his penis and beginning the mechanical business of removing all of the semen from it as quickly as you can.
He’ll grunt and groan and occasionally remove the parking brake and let the car slide forward tentatively. He’ll even order while you blow him, barely containing his voice for the few seconds required to request a mocha for him and a large black coffee for you. He’ll finish as he receives the coffees, shivering with pleasure as the barista passes him the drinks.
You’ll immediately withdraw your mouth, the taste of him still fresh on your breath, and rip your coffee out his hand. You’ll gulp it down, relishing the scalding sensation on your tongue as it winds down your throat and into your stomach, filtering precious drug product into your body.
“Thanks honey,” you’ll say, kissing him on the cheek.
“No problem,” he’ll say, gasping as he pulls out into traffic, clutching his mocha to keep you from downing it in a single gulp, because you’re a junkie, and junkies cannot be trusted.
Congratulations Coffee Head!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Games and Philosophy!
There are few cultural conceits are nebulous and ubiquitous in their scope than hip hop. From the violent socialism posited by intellectuals such as The Coup and Aesop Rock to the rampant commercialism implied in the works of more mainstream artists such as Jay Z and Kanye West, with plenty of middle ground in between, hip hop is always espousing a world view, even when it doesn’t seem to try to. From high art to low art hip hop is there, and one of the few things it does consistently is voice concerns about the individual in relation to society. The individual’s place, or lack thereof, his commitment to cultural institutions or his duty as a free thinking individual to reject, reform, or adhere to them. When you dress up the concept of thug, the idea of free-expression through a diverse art form, hip hop grows into a cross section of intellectualism and social commentary that, even at its worst, without thinking, reflects on the people producing it.
Not so much for video games.
I’m not even going to try and bridge this with a tie in to the nerdcore movement and its awkward little brother relationship with hip hop. But I will say that video games are a similar perceptibly “low” form of art (with often high ambitions and, very rarely, accomplishments) to hip hop that play to another isolated or maligned group, granted one with markedly different problems. To say that nerds are socially accepted is to ignore the function of a society which actively attempts to reject its intellectuals, seeking to silence its wisest voices, and it’s no less crippling a fact of our lives as Americans than the manner in which we have historically attempted to dismiss our diversity and enforce a socio-economic hierarchy counter to our purported national identity. Did you make it through that grandiose statement? Bear with me, it’ll be worth it. I promise.
Video games suck at what hip hop is great at: purporting a given philosophy or presenting a means of perceiving a given philosophy as valid or invalid without making it into a straw man argument. Even good attempts at doing so, such as Bioshock, inevitably deliver their philosophical viewpoints as muddled extremes rather than nuanced, acceptable perspectives. Video games are the medium of self-projection, and unlike books or music which excel at conveying abstract concepts and pressing participants towards a given conclusion, games mostly just reinforce the conceit of isolation fundamental to their core. Games consist of a self and an other, and the other is nearly always hostile. If the other is not hostile, they will usually serve as some sort of obstruction.
The few exceptions to this rule, games like Left 4 Dead, Dawn of War II and Starcraft 2, games with a focus on multiplayer play which makes teamwork an absolute necessity, are so devoid of theme and content as to be asinine in a discussion about its delivery in the medium at large. Every single video game which attempts to convey a theme does so by placing you at odds with that theme or its opposing viewpoint. It has to. Games are about overcoming a challenge, and that challenge is almost always either the framework of the game or the content of the game. Sometimes both.
This is how they illustrate their point. Doom II is fundamentally a game about subverting authority, from its lame back story to its final battle, which involves shooting the lead developer of the game in the head through the mouth of a giant hellbeast commanding an army. Far Cry 2 is a game about subverting expectations, where you are forced to manage a bevy of conditions that video games normally omit: debilitating physical illness which strikes unexpectedly, scarce resources and currency, limited supply, constant danger and the necessity of travel and reconnaissance. It ends with the ultimate subversion of expectations, the complete inversion of its initial goal. All of this is established through conflict, and while they generate some interesting experiences that can illustrate some fascinating ideas about who you are and how you respond to a mixture of beauty and horror, none of them make a single philosophical point aside from the asinine conceit that the military industrial complex of the developed world has ravaged Africa.
Perhaps it is this reliance on external conflict, born of necessity, which prevents games from illustrating and espousing points particularly effectively. When you can only make points by presenting concepts and demanding their annihilation rather than constructing the conceit of a concept and forcing players to grow into it it through action (the way that say Jonathan Franzen constructs, deconstructs and re-establishes a set of ideas about the American nuclear family in The Corrections) you really can’t make the ideas too convincing. If you make someone eliminate a concept they believe in you’re going to make the game unpleasant to play. If you make it too easy to follow, too asinine, you’re going to make the story boring, a chore to slog through. It’s a delicate balance.
Which brings me to perhaps the only effective example of effectively conveying a viewpoint in a video game. This is a game I haven’t mentioned in a while, a game that has been buried to some extent by more recent releases and a lack of progress towards its sequels which remains a golden standard in the manner in which developers should aside to convey ideas about theme. I’m talking about Half-Life 2.
Half-Life 2 doesn’t visibly espouse any concept, except perhaps the indomitable nature of human spirit. You and your plucky resistance buddies just keep getting back up no matter how hard you get hit, and no one ever talks of quitting. They despair, they give up hope, but they never collapse. They’re a cohesive unit which, when you get right down to it, isn’t very good at accomplishing their purpose.
Nor is the Combine for that matter. They’re inexplicably reliant on humans, a people they crushed effortlessly, subject to arbitrary rules about how they can fight and when. They’ve got these weird invulnerable containers that they don’t make armor for their giant war machines out of for whatever retarded reason. They love sending trickles of units against you through tangled corridors where you’ve set up defenses, they have a prison where they turn people into paraplegics with laser eyes who are generally not inclined toward rebellion, or even violence. And they have tremendous trouble beating a plucky twenty-something girl. Let’s face it, what great empire (aside from England) has ever been undone in a conflict by a teenage girl?
And even these invulnerable characters are unreliable sources of assistance. They’re limited in use, they’ll never really save you. They’ll distract your foes, provide opportunities for you, but in the world of Half-Life you’re beset by a series of mechanical forces, overwhelming in scope on all fronts, and your lone saving grace is the ineptitude of these forces. In this portrayal Half-Life 2 espouses a philosophy in that only a video game ever could give proper treatment to: anarchism.
I’m not talking about “we use a symbol” teenager anarchism, the conceit that being part of a deliberately anti-authoritarian group makes you any less a slave than following said authority or the Sacco and Vanzetti proto-tea party asinine rebellion against established systems. I’m talking about tried and true individual determination without regard to membership in a given group anarchism, the conceit that you are inevitably responsible for your own actions and destiny even if there are certain things you must do, want to do, or are pressed into experiencing.
Half-Life 2 delivers this philosophy in spades, presenting you with a number of groups with goals of varying nobility and a consistent degree of ineptitude. It admits its own arbitrary systems, undoes its authority figures with an incredible willingness without ever endeavoring to replace them with new ones. And it calls attention to the fact that it gives you lots of options, lots of toys to resolve your various violence-related challenges, toys that subvert conventional thought and generate unexpected results, all while never letting you forget that you’re a player in a game.
Of course, this is a philosophy based on a departure from all viewpoints presented, a philosophy that illustrates the fallacy of accepting or opposing the view of another without regard for your own. It’s a game that makes you work with unpleasant elements in order to attain your goals, and it’s a game that portrays the various extremes of philosophies (Piecemeal robo-dogs and space slugs fighting? FUCK YES!) as patently absurd. It’s also a game written by some of the most brilliant games writers, illustrated by some of the most deft artists and considered more carefully than any other game in the history of games as an art form.
So it’s hard to say just what’s causing the problem with games conveying complicated ideas. Early film had a similar problem, if we consider Metropolis as an example of a film espousing a viewpoint poorly. It could be our immaturity as a medium, a lacking awareness of how to utilize it. It could be a lack of writing and character, a lack of talent aimed at creating these things in games, that prevents the framework’s potential from being fully realized. Or it could be that the medium itself is problematic, with its obsession with self-determination and definition. Perhaps we’ll one day see a trend of games that make lucid points, games that offer up cogent perspectives instead of generating straw men and insisting that we destroy them. Until then, I’ll be getting my low-art philosophy infusion from hip hop, the way I have since that art burst onto the cultural scene like a car on fire, bursting through a wall into a crowded theater filled with young people, who thought the image, and the preceding terrible analogy, was cool.
Not so much for video games.
I’m not even going to try and bridge this with a tie in to the nerdcore movement and its awkward little brother relationship with hip hop. But I will say that video games are a similar perceptibly “low” form of art (with often high ambitions and, very rarely, accomplishments) to hip hop that play to another isolated or maligned group, granted one with markedly different problems. To say that nerds are socially accepted is to ignore the function of a society which actively attempts to reject its intellectuals, seeking to silence its wisest voices, and it’s no less crippling a fact of our lives as Americans than the manner in which we have historically attempted to dismiss our diversity and enforce a socio-economic hierarchy counter to our purported national identity. Did you make it through that grandiose statement? Bear with me, it’ll be worth it. I promise.
Video games suck at what hip hop is great at: purporting a given philosophy or presenting a means of perceiving a given philosophy as valid or invalid without making it into a straw man argument. Even good attempts at doing so, such as Bioshock, inevitably deliver their philosophical viewpoints as muddled extremes rather than nuanced, acceptable perspectives. Video games are the medium of self-projection, and unlike books or music which excel at conveying abstract concepts and pressing participants towards a given conclusion, games mostly just reinforce the conceit of isolation fundamental to their core. Games consist of a self and an other, and the other is nearly always hostile. If the other is not hostile, they will usually serve as some sort of obstruction.
The few exceptions to this rule, games like Left 4 Dead, Dawn of War II and Starcraft 2, games with a focus on multiplayer play which makes teamwork an absolute necessity, are so devoid of theme and content as to be asinine in a discussion about its delivery in the medium at large. Every single video game which attempts to convey a theme does so by placing you at odds with that theme or its opposing viewpoint. It has to. Games are about overcoming a challenge, and that challenge is almost always either the framework of the game or the content of the game. Sometimes both.
This is how they illustrate their point. Doom II is fundamentally a game about subverting authority, from its lame back story to its final battle, which involves shooting the lead developer of the game in the head through the mouth of a giant hellbeast commanding an army. Far Cry 2 is a game about subverting expectations, where you are forced to manage a bevy of conditions that video games normally omit: debilitating physical illness which strikes unexpectedly, scarce resources and currency, limited supply, constant danger and the necessity of travel and reconnaissance. It ends with the ultimate subversion of expectations, the complete inversion of its initial goal. All of this is established through conflict, and while they generate some interesting experiences that can illustrate some fascinating ideas about who you are and how you respond to a mixture of beauty and horror, none of them make a single philosophical point aside from the asinine conceit that the military industrial complex of the developed world has ravaged Africa.
Perhaps it is this reliance on external conflict, born of necessity, which prevents games from illustrating and espousing points particularly effectively. When you can only make points by presenting concepts and demanding their annihilation rather than constructing the conceit of a concept and forcing players to grow into it it through action (the way that say Jonathan Franzen constructs, deconstructs and re-establishes a set of ideas about the American nuclear family in The Corrections) you really can’t make the ideas too convincing. If you make someone eliminate a concept they believe in you’re going to make the game unpleasant to play. If you make it too easy to follow, too asinine, you’re going to make the story boring, a chore to slog through. It’s a delicate balance.
Which brings me to perhaps the only effective example of effectively conveying a viewpoint in a video game. This is a game I haven’t mentioned in a while, a game that has been buried to some extent by more recent releases and a lack of progress towards its sequels which remains a golden standard in the manner in which developers should aside to convey ideas about theme. I’m talking about Half-Life 2.
Half-Life 2 doesn’t visibly espouse any concept, except perhaps the indomitable nature of human spirit. You and your plucky resistance buddies just keep getting back up no matter how hard you get hit, and no one ever talks of quitting. They despair, they give up hope, but they never collapse. They’re a cohesive unit which, when you get right down to it, isn’t very good at accomplishing their purpose.
Nor is the Combine for that matter. They’re inexplicably reliant on humans, a people they crushed effortlessly, subject to arbitrary rules about how they can fight and when. They’ve got these weird invulnerable containers that they don’t make armor for their giant war machines out of for whatever retarded reason. They love sending trickles of units against you through tangled corridors where you’ve set up defenses, they have a prison where they turn people into paraplegics with laser eyes who are generally not inclined toward rebellion, or even violence. And they have tremendous trouble beating a plucky twenty-something girl. Let’s face it, what great empire (aside from England) has ever been undone in a conflict by a teenage girl?
And even these invulnerable characters are unreliable sources of assistance. They’re limited in use, they’ll never really save you. They’ll distract your foes, provide opportunities for you, but in the world of Half-Life you’re beset by a series of mechanical forces, overwhelming in scope on all fronts, and your lone saving grace is the ineptitude of these forces. In this portrayal Half-Life 2 espouses a philosophy in that only a video game ever could give proper treatment to: anarchism.
I’m not talking about “we use a symbol” teenager anarchism, the conceit that being part of a deliberately anti-authoritarian group makes you any less a slave than following said authority or the Sacco and Vanzetti proto-tea party asinine rebellion against established systems. I’m talking about tried and true individual determination without regard to membership in a given group anarchism, the conceit that you are inevitably responsible for your own actions and destiny even if there are certain things you must do, want to do, or are pressed into experiencing.
Half-Life 2 delivers this philosophy in spades, presenting you with a number of groups with goals of varying nobility and a consistent degree of ineptitude. It admits its own arbitrary systems, undoes its authority figures with an incredible willingness without ever endeavoring to replace them with new ones. And it calls attention to the fact that it gives you lots of options, lots of toys to resolve your various violence-related challenges, toys that subvert conventional thought and generate unexpected results, all while never letting you forget that you’re a player in a game.
Of course, this is a philosophy based on a departure from all viewpoints presented, a philosophy that illustrates the fallacy of accepting or opposing the view of another without regard for your own. It’s a game that makes you work with unpleasant elements in order to attain your goals, and it’s a game that portrays the various extremes of philosophies (Piecemeal robo-dogs and space slugs fighting? FUCK YES!) as patently absurd. It’s also a game written by some of the most brilliant games writers, illustrated by some of the most deft artists and considered more carefully than any other game in the history of games as an art form.
So it’s hard to say just what’s causing the problem with games conveying complicated ideas. Early film had a similar problem, if we consider Metropolis as an example of a film espousing a viewpoint poorly. It could be our immaturity as a medium, a lacking awareness of how to utilize it. It could be a lack of writing and character, a lack of talent aimed at creating these things in games, that prevents the framework’s potential from being fully realized. Or it could be that the medium itself is problematic, with its obsession with self-determination and definition. Perhaps we’ll one day see a trend of games that make lucid points, games that offer up cogent perspectives instead of generating straw men and insisting that we destroy them. Until then, I’ll be getting my low-art philosophy infusion from hip hop, the way I have since that art burst onto the cultural scene like a car on fire, bursting through a wall into a crowded theater filled with young people, who thought the image, and the preceding terrible analogy, was cool.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Congratulations on Your Nearly Tasteful Comments!
This is a rare congratulations directed at network news. It’s kind of a cop out, sure, since it’s addressed to an event which already occurred, but it warrants writing.
Network news: good job generating a nearly tasteful response to Barack Obama’s speech on the horrific shootings in Arizona. For almost ninety seconds apiece each of you avoided saying anything stupid, which is completely unheard of. Then you started in again, sure. But for a brief moment you remembered that we’re a nation filled with real live human beings and sometimes they don’t need to hear you nitpick how all those human beings are slightly different from you.
Sure, your coverage beforehand was tasteless and rendered in such a fashion as to make the event seem incoherent to normal, thinking people. And you’ve spent more time discussing faux pas people made that relate somewhat to it than you have actually discussing current events since then. But for almost two minutes you stood up and had a human response to a speech someone made far away about some horrible actions that someone very troubled carried out against some totally blameless people. Then you went back to entering into a level of discourse inappropriate for any group of adults. So kudos to you for that brief leave from your normal duties.
As for your prediction: be wary of raccoons tonight. They may or may not carry AIDS.
Feel free to broadcast that one.
Congratulations on Your Nearly Tasteful Comments!
Network news: good job generating a nearly tasteful response to Barack Obama’s speech on the horrific shootings in Arizona. For almost ninety seconds apiece each of you avoided saying anything stupid, which is completely unheard of. Then you started in again, sure. But for a brief moment you remembered that we’re a nation filled with real live human beings and sometimes they don’t need to hear you nitpick how all those human beings are slightly different from you.
Sure, your coverage beforehand was tasteless and rendered in such a fashion as to make the event seem incoherent to normal, thinking people. And you’ve spent more time discussing faux pas people made that relate somewhat to it than you have actually discussing current events since then. But for almost two minutes you stood up and had a human response to a speech someone made far away about some horrible actions that someone very troubled carried out against some totally blameless people. Then you went back to entering into a level of discourse inappropriate for any group of adults. So kudos to you for that brief leave from your normal duties.
As for your prediction: be wary of raccoons tonight. They may or may not carry AIDS.
Feel free to broadcast that one.
Congratulations on Your Nearly Tasteful Comments!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Congratulations Bumming Us All Out!
Today you’re going to tell your life story and while a more articulate person might have made your struggle with (shudder) ass cancer into a heart wrenching tale of overcoming tremendous odds you’re going to just make it one long, depressing diatribe about how you now have to watch your spicy foods. It’s going to be long, lame and just seriously depressing but none of us will be able to call you on it because, y’know, cancer survivor.
Congratulations on Bumming Us All Out!
Congratulations on Bumming Us All Out!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Congratulations Celebrity Golf Tournament Loser!
At every celebrity golf tournament there’s one guy who isn’t a celebrity or a golfer. He’s just there. He’s running around trying to get photographed with famous people and scoring free samples of erectile dysfunction medication and hair-regrowth supplements. Today you’re that asshole.
You’ll show up in your battered Mazda Miyata from 1997, which you refer to as your chariot, fifteen minutes late with your name tag already affixed, not that anyone will notice. Then you’ll cruise on in, blue blocker glasses affixed to your face, and start pressing flesh.
You’ll have shaken hands with Matt Damon, Carla Gallo and that kid from Superbad before anyone even starts to catch on. It’ll be about nine holes in.
“Who’s that asshole?!” Jack Nicholson will loudly declare while pointing at you. People surrounding the aging actor will harrumph loudly and look where he points, sizing you up in your stained khakis and ill-fitting polo shirt.
“Jack Jefferson,” you’ll declare loudly. “PGA Junior Tour winner, 1983.” Then you’ll pop your collar and grin smugly at Jack Nicholson, thinking about how shitty every single movie he’s made since Batman has been.
“Well fuck you!” he’ll shout at you, hurling a glass full of whiskey at your head as he does so. You’ll duck deftly, no stranger to the perils of celebrity golf tournaments, but you won’t back down.
“Calm down please, sir,” you’ll say, patting him on the arm while attempting to steal his wallet. “I have every right to be here.”
He’ll slap your hand away and grab your wrist, firmly attached to your hand which is now clutching his wallet.
“Fucking thief!” he’ll holler. Then he’ll start trying to punch you, but he’ll be way too drunk to land any hits. He’ll just kinda spin and fall down, carrying the two of you to the ground.
At this point security will show up and toss you both out. It’ll be kind of embarrassing and normal for both of you and you’ll go home, saddened by the loss of the free hour d’ouvres you were going to eat in lieu of dinner that night.
Congratulations Celebrity Golf Tournament Loser!
You’ll show up in your battered Mazda Miyata from 1997, which you refer to as your chariot, fifteen minutes late with your name tag already affixed, not that anyone will notice. Then you’ll cruise on in, blue blocker glasses affixed to your face, and start pressing flesh.
You’ll have shaken hands with Matt Damon, Carla Gallo and that kid from Superbad before anyone even starts to catch on. It’ll be about nine holes in.
“Who’s that asshole?!” Jack Nicholson will loudly declare while pointing at you. People surrounding the aging actor will harrumph loudly and look where he points, sizing you up in your stained khakis and ill-fitting polo shirt.
“Jack Jefferson,” you’ll declare loudly. “PGA Junior Tour winner, 1983.” Then you’ll pop your collar and grin smugly at Jack Nicholson, thinking about how shitty every single movie he’s made since Batman has been.
“Well fuck you!” he’ll shout at you, hurling a glass full of whiskey at your head as he does so. You’ll duck deftly, no stranger to the perils of celebrity golf tournaments, but you won’t back down.
“Calm down please, sir,” you’ll say, patting him on the arm while attempting to steal his wallet. “I have every right to be here.”
He’ll slap your hand away and grab your wrist, firmly attached to your hand which is now clutching his wallet.
“Fucking thief!” he’ll holler. Then he’ll start trying to punch you, but he’ll be way too drunk to land any hits. He’ll just kinda spin and fall down, carrying the two of you to the ground.
At this point security will show up and toss you both out. It’ll be kind of embarrassing and normal for both of you and you’ll go home, saddened by the loss of the free hour d’ouvres you were going to eat in lieu of dinner that night.
Congratulations Celebrity Golf Tournament Loser!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Congratulations, Your Mom is a Lesbian!
The first hint was the Subaru. Sure, there’s been some heterosexual sex in it in the past, but that’s just something that happens in the backseat of cars, the same way any car parked under an overpass will become fertile ground for an orgy of homeless old men grinding and bumping and grunting their hearts out. Even if you got a handy in it, that Subaru is still the gayest thing on wheels since someone painted a version of the General Lee pink back in the day.
So today when you walk in on your mom nose deep in the letter carrier’s pussy you really won’t have any reason to be that surprised. Sure, her not fucking your dad for the past six years isn’t really a giveaway given the state of marriage in America, but no straight woman likes bowling that much. No straight woman has that many roller derby bumperstickers on her car. And no straight woman would have insisted that you get the ESPN package on your cable service.
So while dropping the milk is totally justifiable, since you’re going to be walking in on your mom having sex, which is totally fucked up and gross (we actually think it’s hot, but it’s your mom so the rules don’t apply to you) you can’t really act too shocked that she’s a lesbian.
We’d recommend that, instead of freaking out you just walk back outside, wait on the porch and then talk to her about discretion in the future so that you don’t have to see her eating pussy as long as you still live with her. Remind her that college is coming soon for you and that you won’t be around all the time in just a few short months, at which point she can fuck whoever she wants on the surfaces you used to eat on.
If you play your cards right you’ll probably end up getting a shitty car as a going away gift for being so cool, since your mom is totally the bread-winner in your family (another sign).
Congratulations, Your Mom Is a Lesbian!
So today when you walk in on your mom nose deep in the letter carrier’s pussy you really won’t have any reason to be that surprised. Sure, her not fucking your dad for the past six years isn’t really a giveaway given the state of marriage in America, but no straight woman likes bowling that much. No straight woman has that many roller derby bumperstickers on her car. And no straight woman would have insisted that you get the ESPN package on your cable service.
So while dropping the milk is totally justifiable, since you’re going to be walking in on your mom having sex, which is totally fucked up and gross (we actually think it’s hot, but it’s your mom so the rules don’t apply to you) you can’t really act too shocked that she’s a lesbian.
We’d recommend that, instead of freaking out you just walk back outside, wait on the porch and then talk to her about discretion in the future so that you don’t have to see her eating pussy as long as you still live with her. Remind her that college is coming soon for you and that you won’t be around all the time in just a few short months, at which point she can fuck whoever she wants on the surfaces you used to eat on.
If you play your cards right you’ll probably end up getting a shitty car as a going away gift for being so cool, since your mom is totally the bread-winner in your family (another sign).
Congratulations, Your Mom Is a Lesbian!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Congratulations Famous Dog Abuser!
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Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: The Best Games of 2010: Part Two!
Best Game No One Else Seems To Be Playing – Lead and Gold
It took me a while to work up the courage to buy Lead and Gold. It has a lot to do with my friends.
I have a group of friends I play multiplayer games with on a regular basis. We get together once or twice a week on Skype and we get drunk and play games as a team. As a result we usually look for new and interesting multiplayer titles to enjoy. Some more successful ones include Heroes of Newerth and Starcraft 2. There was even a year where we played almost nothing but Dawn of War II, to the point that we were actually okay at it. Less successful titles have included Borderlands and Killing Floor, ugly repetitive games that involve matching wits mostly against a computer instead of a human player, games where success is measured in half steps and failures are monumental and frustrating. A game like Lead and Gold would seem like an ideal fit for my friends, but they hated it.
Hated it passionately. Their reasoning (it being bad) made it hard to zero in on just what the problem was, but it was also difficult to really argue against. If someone thinks a game is bad it will always be bad for them. You can’t make someone like something they’re set on disliking. But what was really bad was that I, with my limited funds, chose not to buy the fifteen dollar Lead and Gold. I can’t recall what I bought in its place (possibly a bottle of whiskey) but I always sort of regretted not getting a copy.
But during the second free weekend of Lead and Gold I finally caved and just got it. It was tremendously fun, and the free weekend gave the game a sort of party attitude and flooded servers with novice players who made a middling sharpshooter like me feel like a god. There are few games as solid on their message, mechanics and methods as Lead and Gold, and it deserves praise if only as a design model for cooperatively competitive multiplayer. Rolling through a rough battle with your teammates around you and the bodies of enemies strewn about is a hell of a feeling, on par with scoring a triple kill in Modern Warfare, and the art of Lead and Gold is just perfect. It captures its mix of serious and sarcastic effortlessly and, this is kind of key and often ignored, especially in western games: it just looks good.
The only problem is that no one ever seems to be online. Ever. I’m not sure if it’s a depopulation issue or just a server location issue, but whenever I try to play off peak hours I can’t find a single active game. Even at peak hours pickings are slim, and the number of players I actually see never seems to represent even a single percent of the proposed count of active players online at present.
The end result is a beautifully designed, excellent game that doesn’t seem to have any players, and a royal bummer for me. I do occasionally get a chance to hop online and lay about with my six shooter, but it’s less often than I’d like and it kind of bums me out. Still, I don’t regret handing Fatshark my money at long last, nor do I regret the time I’ve put into honing my skills as a sharpshooter. My only regret is that I can’t bring the game into any sort of regular rotation, and that playing it on the fly seems so impossible given the server population available.
Best Game That Ruined My Fucking Life – Starcraft 2
If Lead and Gold is Roanoke of legend, Starcraft 2 is a New Amsterdam a few decades later: overflowing with goods and peoples of varying cultures, constantly under the threat of overbearing Anglocentric rule, subject to crude, overdrawn analogies and occasional They Might Be Giant songs. There will never be a time of day when Starcraft will take more than five minutes to find you a match. In fact, five minutes is completely unacceptable as far as match making times run in Starcraft. It’ll probably take less than a minute. And the match will be over in twelve. And then you’ll be back in to try and get one more win on your record so you can unlock that sweet portrait of a zergling you hold so dear.
Starcraft 2 wasn’t the biggest retail release of the year, not by a long shot thanks largely to Call of Duty’s remarkable market share. But it might’ve been the biggest cultural release of the year and with good cause. Starcraft represents a refinement of a game play model mixed with the finest production values in the industry and pedigree second to none. Blizzard has become the greatest developer in the world at creating games that double as social lives, and while I’m not sure I’d call them the greatest developer of all time (certainly not the most ambitious) it is impossible to deny that their games are well crafted, well considered experiences that complete their own goals.
In Starcraft 2’s case, this goal is basically inventing a new way for me to talk to people.
I get how sport wankers work now. Talking stats, discussing how a game unfolded like they had some hand in it even though they were just planted on a couch watching a piece of cloth get battered about by overpaid assholes who will do nothing but whine in a few years when they finally get old, I get it. Because I do that with Starcraft. I can sit and have a beer with a buddy of mine and talk for an hour straight about tactics, strategy, the way that units play and which units I like. Actually, all of that involves stuff that I think about, control and study. Never mind, I still don’t get how sport wankers work.
I just get their intensity, their singular drive. Starcraft 2 is the finest realization of that sort of drive. It is intense in every sense of the word, from its planning to its execution, and to excel at it as a game you have to know it, take it seriously and, in a rather zen twist, remove your ego from the equation. If you refuse to adapt, refuse to accept responsibility for your mistakes, Starcraft will elude and frustrate you. To succeed you have to sublimate yourself and learn from your opponent. You must lose track of you and work to adapt.
Or you can just pound your head against the wall and hammer out plenty of wins against players of similar skill. One of Blizzard’s great accomplishments, along with building a totally fine multiplayer game for people who are super serious about this sort of thing, is also building a matchmaking system that presents you with a constant illusion of shifting skill level. Even if it ever finds where you belong, Starcraft 2 will make you feel like you’re about to shift by matching you with people who are way too good or way too crappy to be playing with you. In doing so it informs your knowledge of the playing field as a whole, but also gives you a chance to feel like a badass at least once a night. And the potent feeling of winning is sometimes enough to knock the flavor of even the most bitter defeats out of your mouth, especially if you’re not paying attention too hard.
Bear in mind, all of this is being said about the multiplayer product. The single player game doesn’t deserve mention on any sort of list, with one exception – the challenges. Cleverly named, they’re actually cute little training missions intended to introduce players to the finer points of Starcraft 2 multiplayer. Since the skill set you acquire in the single player game has about as much to do with multiplayer as I do with the aforementioned sport wankers it’s nice to see that they’re giving new players a chance to learn the basics of base defense and economy management in a safe, directed environment. It doesn’t always take (I have a friend who ignores the advice of the computer and frequently just plays the challenges, then doesn’t understand when he can’t break bronze on them) but the existence of the framework is a nice touch, and it shows that Blizzard gets how to convert people and help them experience one of the more impressive games they’ve made during their storied careers.
Best Game About Tying String Around Things – Zen Bound 2
I almost didn’t buy Zen Bound 2. I thought the idea sounded stupid when someone suggested it to me. I thought only an idiot would spend time tying virtual string around virtual items. I even feel kind of dumb saying it right now. Then I actually played it.
Zen Bound 2 is perhaps the single most relaxing experience I’ve had this year, bar none. It’s like you smoked weed earlier in the day and forgot about it. It is by far the most robust string-around-pieces-of-wood simulator on the market, and it has the whole industry cornered right now. Whenever I feel tense I just fire up Zen Bound 2 and play a few puzzles. So far it hasn’t failed to calm me down and help focus my mind, and it’s the one game I’ve ever shown my dad that has elicited a genuine “that’s actually pretty cool” response. Buy a copy for the aging hippy inside you, or the person who needs to attend court ordered aggression management classes but really can’t afford the time to do so right now.
Best Game That Made Me Realize I’d Be a Great Dad In an Undersea City Where the Only Responsibilities I’d Have Towards My Child Involve Murdering Plastic Surgery Addicts and Men in Diving Suits – Bioshock 2
You knew it was going to be on here, even though it came out so, so early in the year and it’s so easy to have forgotten it after such an exciting slough of new titles hit pavement over time. But let’s face it, Bioshock still gets cred for a reason, and Bioshock 2 continued that tradition of receiving due credit for its exceptional storytelling, spot on game play and masterful design in every respect.
It’s almost too easy to gush about the strength of the visuals, the iteration of the game play itself from the original and the obvious brilliance in letting you play a real, live Big Daddy with real Big Daddy powers. The improved variety of enemies, the new and interesting denizens of Rapture you meet and the streamlined plasmid/weapon/hacking exchange are all great. As a game, Bioshock 2 is nearly without peer.
But as a narrative it also succeeds. In fact I’d say it succeeds more than any other story told in the last year. Plenty of games might aspire to tell interesting stories, or use the medium of games to greater potential, but no one does what Bioshock does quite as well. No one else tells a textured, carefully constructed story with a set of themes and characters and weaves them together the way that Bioshock did. I’m not holding out hope for the upcoming feature film (there’s very little reason to, although it could be enjoyable as a diversion) but I am looking forward to the next game in the Shock cycle, and Bioshock 2 is a big part of why.
Few artistic works still elicit emotion from me at this point in my life. It’s tough to make people who study books or films feel for them. For example, Jonathan Franzen, for all his critical aplomb, is really easy to distance yourself from as you read. His likably unlikable characters, the manner in which their lives feel constructed, are all enjoyable and great, but they don’t make me care in the least. Whereas Junot Diaz drew me into someone’s shitty life and really made me feel for them. Both books were competent, but one managed to do something incredible – it managed to make me connect with it on an emotional level. Works that do this are rare.
In game it has occurred for me relatively few times. Myth was likely the first and best example, where I actually cared about the struggle of my troops. Bioshock and the Path were other excellent examples, games that took ideas about vulnerability and wove them into their stories and designs in beautiful, haunting ways that can be analyzed and examined without ever losing their heft. Bioshock 2 told me a story about fatherhood. It told me a story that, in a way, changed the way I look at children, a story about responsibility emerging not from blood but shared circumstances and existence, a story about endurance and sacrifice and nobility, the lessons you teach in life reflecting themselves in someone else, someone you’re actually proud of.
There, I said it. Bioshock 2 made me proud of what Eleanor was capable of. And the final frame of that game, just like the first Bioshock, made me tear up. It’s not about playing with emotions, it’s about making people connect with a work, and Bioshock 2 gets that. It wasn’t quite my favorite game this year, but it was certainly my favorite game that could also be viewed as a work of art.
Best Game I Didn’t Think Really Needed to Exist Which is Now Just My Favorite Game From 2010 – Fallout: New Vegas
I’m as big a Fallout fan as the next guy. I played the shit out of Fallout 3. I even kinda replayed it, as a neutral character, no mean feat, and I still enjoy it every time I hop in and mess around. Sure, it gets a little boring at the endgame, but the feeling of putting a .308 round into a Super Mutant’s skull from thousands of miles away never gets old. Watching the Enclave shed body parts under a hail of plasma fire is satisfying in a way that a therapist would probably have some things to say about. But I didn’t see any reason for Fallout: New Vegas to exist.
Van Buren was, in my mind, buried. It was a project that died, sadly, in the arms of Interplay and was best left dead. I saw New Vegas as an attempt to resurrect it. Boy was I off.
From start to finish this game drew me in, a game I didn’t want to like but played out of a sense of duty. The first time I actually looked down the iron-sights of a weapon I actually shouted “oh snap.” I would spend minutes checking my supplies, considering where I could find water or food nearby as I, like any true nerd, played through the game in Hardcore mode. I chose my weapons carefully, thought about how much gear I’d be able to carry back with me after my next run out into the wastes. I talked to my companions and tried to get a sense of how they were, who they were.
I lived in the world of Fallout: New Vegas.
It is a marvelous achievement that a game can transport you as expertly as Fallout: New Vegas does, and while it does take some work, with abundant tech issues and constant sprouting quests and status updates, exploring the world of New Vegas, growing relationships and changing the landscape with tiny steps is deeply satisfying and intensely immersive. I definitely lost sleep over Fallout: New Vegas, and I have no regrets to that end. The hundred-some-odd hours I’ve dumped into that game tooling around with weapons, appreciating a refinement of a system that seemed just fine before… They’ve been great. And I plan to come back when I have the time, I promise. But the game is one of those rare titles that can suck me in and just hold me, and as much as I’d love to be with a game in that way right now I’ve got to split my attentions. So Fallout: New Vegas gathers dust.
But it stays on top of the mantle, the finest game I played over the last year and perhaps the game I’d most readily recommend to anyone who wants to see the amazing capacity the medium holds for telling interesting, engrossing stories that could not be told in any other way. I’d like to close by saying that Fallout: New Vegas is the other game that actually made me feel an evocative connection this year, though not to any specific character (except Rose of Sharon Cassidy, my whiskey soaked video-game love). It made me feel tied to the world itself, the landscape and its people as a group. It made me want the best for them, made me want to learn more about its secrets. I felt rage reading of the inhumanities of Caesar’s legions and frustration at the ineptitude of the NCR’s fledgling efforts. I felt hope speaking with Julie Farkas and resolve standing with Marcus against bigots and bandits alike.
Few games have the ambition of Fallout: New Vegas, and few manage it nearly as well as this title developed by an under-funded, oft derided developer of reaching, buggy works of brilliance. If you haven’t, please play Fallout: New Vegas. And may you be one of the lucky few to play through it without a single bug barring your path.
It took me a while to work up the courage to buy Lead and Gold. It has a lot to do with my friends.
I have a group of friends I play multiplayer games with on a regular basis. We get together once or twice a week on Skype and we get drunk and play games as a team. As a result we usually look for new and interesting multiplayer titles to enjoy. Some more successful ones include Heroes of Newerth and Starcraft 2. There was even a year where we played almost nothing but Dawn of War II, to the point that we were actually okay at it. Less successful titles have included Borderlands and Killing Floor, ugly repetitive games that involve matching wits mostly against a computer instead of a human player, games where success is measured in half steps and failures are monumental and frustrating. A game like Lead and Gold would seem like an ideal fit for my friends, but they hated it.
Hated it passionately. Their reasoning (it being bad) made it hard to zero in on just what the problem was, but it was also difficult to really argue against. If someone thinks a game is bad it will always be bad for them. You can’t make someone like something they’re set on disliking. But what was really bad was that I, with my limited funds, chose not to buy the fifteen dollar Lead and Gold. I can’t recall what I bought in its place (possibly a bottle of whiskey) but I always sort of regretted not getting a copy.
But during the second free weekend of Lead and Gold I finally caved and just got it. It was tremendously fun, and the free weekend gave the game a sort of party attitude and flooded servers with novice players who made a middling sharpshooter like me feel like a god. There are few games as solid on their message, mechanics and methods as Lead and Gold, and it deserves praise if only as a design model for cooperatively competitive multiplayer. Rolling through a rough battle with your teammates around you and the bodies of enemies strewn about is a hell of a feeling, on par with scoring a triple kill in Modern Warfare, and the art of Lead and Gold is just perfect. It captures its mix of serious and sarcastic effortlessly and, this is kind of key and often ignored, especially in western games: it just looks good.
The only problem is that no one ever seems to be online. Ever. I’m not sure if it’s a depopulation issue or just a server location issue, but whenever I try to play off peak hours I can’t find a single active game. Even at peak hours pickings are slim, and the number of players I actually see never seems to represent even a single percent of the proposed count of active players online at present.
The end result is a beautifully designed, excellent game that doesn’t seem to have any players, and a royal bummer for me. I do occasionally get a chance to hop online and lay about with my six shooter, but it’s less often than I’d like and it kind of bums me out. Still, I don’t regret handing Fatshark my money at long last, nor do I regret the time I’ve put into honing my skills as a sharpshooter. My only regret is that I can’t bring the game into any sort of regular rotation, and that playing it on the fly seems so impossible given the server population available.
Best Game That Ruined My Fucking Life – Starcraft 2
If Lead and Gold is Roanoke of legend, Starcraft 2 is a New Amsterdam a few decades later: overflowing with goods and peoples of varying cultures, constantly under the threat of overbearing Anglocentric rule, subject to crude, overdrawn analogies and occasional They Might Be Giant songs. There will never be a time of day when Starcraft will take more than five minutes to find you a match. In fact, five minutes is completely unacceptable as far as match making times run in Starcraft. It’ll probably take less than a minute. And the match will be over in twelve. And then you’ll be back in to try and get one more win on your record so you can unlock that sweet portrait of a zergling you hold so dear.
Starcraft 2 wasn’t the biggest retail release of the year, not by a long shot thanks largely to Call of Duty’s remarkable market share. But it might’ve been the biggest cultural release of the year and with good cause. Starcraft represents a refinement of a game play model mixed with the finest production values in the industry and pedigree second to none. Blizzard has become the greatest developer in the world at creating games that double as social lives, and while I’m not sure I’d call them the greatest developer of all time (certainly not the most ambitious) it is impossible to deny that their games are well crafted, well considered experiences that complete their own goals.
In Starcraft 2’s case, this goal is basically inventing a new way for me to talk to people.
I get how sport wankers work now. Talking stats, discussing how a game unfolded like they had some hand in it even though they were just planted on a couch watching a piece of cloth get battered about by overpaid assholes who will do nothing but whine in a few years when they finally get old, I get it. Because I do that with Starcraft. I can sit and have a beer with a buddy of mine and talk for an hour straight about tactics, strategy, the way that units play and which units I like. Actually, all of that involves stuff that I think about, control and study. Never mind, I still don’t get how sport wankers work.
I just get their intensity, their singular drive. Starcraft 2 is the finest realization of that sort of drive. It is intense in every sense of the word, from its planning to its execution, and to excel at it as a game you have to know it, take it seriously and, in a rather zen twist, remove your ego from the equation. If you refuse to adapt, refuse to accept responsibility for your mistakes, Starcraft will elude and frustrate you. To succeed you have to sublimate yourself and learn from your opponent. You must lose track of you and work to adapt.
Or you can just pound your head against the wall and hammer out plenty of wins against players of similar skill. One of Blizzard’s great accomplishments, along with building a totally fine multiplayer game for people who are super serious about this sort of thing, is also building a matchmaking system that presents you with a constant illusion of shifting skill level. Even if it ever finds where you belong, Starcraft 2 will make you feel like you’re about to shift by matching you with people who are way too good or way too crappy to be playing with you. In doing so it informs your knowledge of the playing field as a whole, but also gives you a chance to feel like a badass at least once a night. And the potent feeling of winning is sometimes enough to knock the flavor of even the most bitter defeats out of your mouth, especially if you’re not paying attention too hard.
Bear in mind, all of this is being said about the multiplayer product. The single player game doesn’t deserve mention on any sort of list, with one exception – the challenges. Cleverly named, they’re actually cute little training missions intended to introduce players to the finer points of Starcraft 2 multiplayer. Since the skill set you acquire in the single player game has about as much to do with multiplayer as I do with the aforementioned sport wankers it’s nice to see that they’re giving new players a chance to learn the basics of base defense and economy management in a safe, directed environment. It doesn’t always take (I have a friend who ignores the advice of the computer and frequently just plays the challenges, then doesn’t understand when he can’t break bronze on them) but the existence of the framework is a nice touch, and it shows that Blizzard gets how to convert people and help them experience one of the more impressive games they’ve made during their storied careers.
Best Game About Tying String Around Things – Zen Bound 2
I almost didn’t buy Zen Bound 2. I thought the idea sounded stupid when someone suggested it to me. I thought only an idiot would spend time tying virtual string around virtual items. I even feel kind of dumb saying it right now. Then I actually played it.
Zen Bound 2 is perhaps the single most relaxing experience I’ve had this year, bar none. It’s like you smoked weed earlier in the day and forgot about it. It is by far the most robust string-around-pieces-of-wood simulator on the market, and it has the whole industry cornered right now. Whenever I feel tense I just fire up Zen Bound 2 and play a few puzzles. So far it hasn’t failed to calm me down and help focus my mind, and it’s the one game I’ve ever shown my dad that has elicited a genuine “that’s actually pretty cool” response. Buy a copy for the aging hippy inside you, or the person who needs to attend court ordered aggression management classes but really can’t afford the time to do so right now.
Best Game That Made Me Realize I’d Be a Great Dad In an Undersea City Where the Only Responsibilities I’d Have Towards My Child Involve Murdering Plastic Surgery Addicts and Men in Diving Suits – Bioshock 2
You knew it was going to be on here, even though it came out so, so early in the year and it’s so easy to have forgotten it after such an exciting slough of new titles hit pavement over time. But let’s face it, Bioshock still gets cred for a reason, and Bioshock 2 continued that tradition of receiving due credit for its exceptional storytelling, spot on game play and masterful design in every respect.
It’s almost too easy to gush about the strength of the visuals, the iteration of the game play itself from the original and the obvious brilliance in letting you play a real, live Big Daddy with real Big Daddy powers. The improved variety of enemies, the new and interesting denizens of Rapture you meet and the streamlined plasmid/weapon/hacking exchange are all great. As a game, Bioshock 2 is nearly without peer.
But as a narrative it also succeeds. In fact I’d say it succeeds more than any other story told in the last year. Plenty of games might aspire to tell interesting stories, or use the medium of games to greater potential, but no one does what Bioshock does quite as well. No one else tells a textured, carefully constructed story with a set of themes and characters and weaves them together the way that Bioshock did. I’m not holding out hope for the upcoming feature film (there’s very little reason to, although it could be enjoyable as a diversion) but I am looking forward to the next game in the Shock cycle, and Bioshock 2 is a big part of why.
Few artistic works still elicit emotion from me at this point in my life. It’s tough to make people who study books or films feel for them. For example, Jonathan Franzen, for all his critical aplomb, is really easy to distance yourself from as you read. His likably unlikable characters, the manner in which their lives feel constructed, are all enjoyable and great, but they don’t make me care in the least. Whereas Junot Diaz drew me into someone’s shitty life and really made me feel for them. Both books were competent, but one managed to do something incredible – it managed to make me connect with it on an emotional level. Works that do this are rare.
In game it has occurred for me relatively few times. Myth was likely the first and best example, where I actually cared about the struggle of my troops. Bioshock and the Path were other excellent examples, games that took ideas about vulnerability and wove them into their stories and designs in beautiful, haunting ways that can be analyzed and examined without ever losing their heft. Bioshock 2 told me a story about fatherhood. It told me a story that, in a way, changed the way I look at children, a story about responsibility emerging not from blood but shared circumstances and existence, a story about endurance and sacrifice and nobility, the lessons you teach in life reflecting themselves in someone else, someone you’re actually proud of.
There, I said it. Bioshock 2 made me proud of what Eleanor was capable of. And the final frame of that game, just like the first Bioshock, made me tear up. It’s not about playing with emotions, it’s about making people connect with a work, and Bioshock 2 gets that. It wasn’t quite my favorite game this year, but it was certainly my favorite game that could also be viewed as a work of art.
Best Game I Didn’t Think Really Needed to Exist Which is Now Just My Favorite Game From 2010 – Fallout: New Vegas
I’m as big a Fallout fan as the next guy. I played the shit out of Fallout 3. I even kinda replayed it, as a neutral character, no mean feat, and I still enjoy it every time I hop in and mess around. Sure, it gets a little boring at the endgame, but the feeling of putting a .308 round into a Super Mutant’s skull from thousands of miles away never gets old. Watching the Enclave shed body parts under a hail of plasma fire is satisfying in a way that a therapist would probably have some things to say about. But I didn’t see any reason for Fallout: New Vegas to exist.
Van Buren was, in my mind, buried. It was a project that died, sadly, in the arms of Interplay and was best left dead. I saw New Vegas as an attempt to resurrect it. Boy was I off.
From start to finish this game drew me in, a game I didn’t want to like but played out of a sense of duty. The first time I actually looked down the iron-sights of a weapon I actually shouted “oh snap.” I would spend minutes checking my supplies, considering where I could find water or food nearby as I, like any true nerd, played through the game in Hardcore mode. I chose my weapons carefully, thought about how much gear I’d be able to carry back with me after my next run out into the wastes. I talked to my companions and tried to get a sense of how they were, who they were.
I lived in the world of Fallout: New Vegas.
It is a marvelous achievement that a game can transport you as expertly as Fallout: New Vegas does, and while it does take some work, with abundant tech issues and constant sprouting quests and status updates, exploring the world of New Vegas, growing relationships and changing the landscape with tiny steps is deeply satisfying and intensely immersive. I definitely lost sleep over Fallout: New Vegas, and I have no regrets to that end. The hundred-some-odd hours I’ve dumped into that game tooling around with weapons, appreciating a refinement of a system that seemed just fine before… They’ve been great. And I plan to come back when I have the time, I promise. But the game is one of those rare titles that can suck me in and just hold me, and as much as I’d love to be with a game in that way right now I’ve got to split my attentions. So Fallout: New Vegas gathers dust.
But it stays on top of the mantle, the finest game I played over the last year and perhaps the game I’d most readily recommend to anyone who wants to see the amazing capacity the medium holds for telling interesting, engrossing stories that could not be told in any other way. I’d like to close by saying that Fallout: New Vegas is the other game that actually made me feel an evocative connection this year, though not to any specific character (except Rose of Sharon Cassidy, my whiskey soaked video-game love). It made me feel tied to the world itself, the landscape and its people as a group. It made me want the best for them, made me want to learn more about its secrets. I felt rage reading of the inhumanities of Caesar’s legions and frustration at the ineptitude of the NCR’s fledgling efforts. I felt hope speaking with Julie Farkas and resolve standing with Marcus against bigots and bandits alike.
Few games have the ambition of Fallout: New Vegas, and few manage it nearly as well as this title developed by an under-funded, oft derided developer of reaching, buggy works of brilliance. If you haven’t, please play Fallout: New Vegas. And may you be one of the lucky few to play through it without a single bug barring your path.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Congratulations on Losing at Hide and Seek!
You never were much for games. But panting in that bush, braced against its narrow trunk as its tangled weave of branches presses into you painfully, you’re going to feel more alive than you have in years. It’ll take an effort not to laugh out loud at the rush of hiding, of being hidden.
You’ll stifle all emotion, though. You’re in this to win it. You didn’t write your crazy uncle’s will, but you’re sure as shit going to adhere to it because that’s what he would’ve wanted and you stick through to the end for family.
Unfortunately all the money he promised you can’t cure your tuberculosis, and you’ll start coughing up a storm and fall out of the bush. Your sister will run up to where you’ve fallen, brandishing a shovel and strike you in the skull until you die.
Those are the rules of the game, and you’d have done the same to her were your circumstances reversed. You just hope she uses some of that sweet sweet money to buy you a nice tombstone.
Congratulations on Losing at Hide and Seek!
You’ll stifle all emotion, though. You’re in this to win it. You didn’t write your crazy uncle’s will, but you’re sure as shit going to adhere to it because that’s what he would’ve wanted and you stick through to the end for family.
Unfortunately all the money he promised you can’t cure your tuberculosis, and you’ll start coughing up a storm and fall out of the bush. Your sister will run up to where you’ve fallen, brandishing a shovel and strike you in the skull until you die.
Those are the rules of the game, and you’d have done the same to her were your circumstances reversed. You just hope she uses some of that sweet sweet money to buy you a nice tombstone.
Congratulations on Losing at Hide and Seek!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Congratulations on Falling Out with the Church!
“I just don’t think fucking kids is right,” you’ll declare quietly while sitting at the Secret Catholic Club’s fancy dinner table. Then the room will go quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop. Everyone will have stopped eating. Occasionally someone’s robes will rustle, but for the most part the stillness will be suffocating. Then a chair will screech as the Archdioses of Boston rises to his feet shaking his head.
“BURN IN HELL, HERETIC!” he’ll cry, flicking holy water on you. You’ll sputter as it goes into your mouth and spills down your shirt. You’ll want to flip shit and hit him in the face, but he’s your church superior so it’ll be a no-go. You’ll just have to stand there and take it.
He’ll keep at it a good long while, hurling various relics and reliquaries at you and chanting non-sense in what sounds like but actually is not Latin while he circles around you. Dinner will have been over for a long while when some of the other members of the Catholic church finally step up and take him to another room where he can get wasted on sacrament and throw rocks at an old man with a beard they pay to walk back and forth in the Vattican basement.
Once he’s been removed you’ll be shuffled off too, but not to a fun place where you get to abuse the poor. You’ll be taken to a secret underground meeting room where the Pope will be waiting for you. He’ll be looking particularly evil this evening, with dark rings under his eyes and his fingers constantly touching by only the tips.
“Good evening,” he’ll say, smiling unnervingly.
“Hey Pope,” you’ll say, doing a little semi-circle wave at him. He’ll nod back. Then he’ll lick his lips and begin.
“Your controversial opinion regarding the sexual abuse of children is a bit much for some of us,” he’ll sigh. “We cannot have such dissenting voices within the church.” You’ll sit, struck dumb.
“Thinking we shouldn’t fuck kids is controversial?” you’ll say, puzzled. He’ll immediately shush you.
“Please, my child. The walls have ears here.” He’ll drum his fingers on the desk as he considers just what to do with you. “Excommunication would be imprudent, given your record and the circumstances.” Then he’ll make a sucking sound through his teeth. “How do you feel about Alaska?”
You’ll stand up and bow to the pope, then walk out of the room, your shoulders drooping a little. You didn’t want to have your career with the church go this way, but sometimes it happens. At least you’re going to Alaska instead of one of those molesting priests. Maybe you’ll even be able to do some good there. We don’t know, we’re not that good at this future thing. For now we’ll just say Congratulations on Falling Out With the Church!
“BURN IN HELL, HERETIC!” he’ll cry, flicking holy water on you. You’ll sputter as it goes into your mouth and spills down your shirt. You’ll want to flip shit and hit him in the face, but he’s your church superior so it’ll be a no-go. You’ll just have to stand there and take it.
He’ll keep at it a good long while, hurling various relics and reliquaries at you and chanting non-sense in what sounds like but actually is not Latin while he circles around you. Dinner will have been over for a long while when some of the other members of the Catholic church finally step up and take him to another room where he can get wasted on sacrament and throw rocks at an old man with a beard they pay to walk back and forth in the Vattican basement.
Once he’s been removed you’ll be shuffled off too, but not to a fun place where you get to abuse the poor. You’ll be taken to a secret underground meeting room where the Pope will be waiting for you. He’ll be looking particularly evil this evening, with dark rings under his eyes and his fingers constantly touching by only the tips.
“Good evening,” he’ll say, smiling unnervingly.
“Hey Pope,” you’ll say, doing a little semi-circle wave at him. He’ll nod back. Then he’ll lick his lips and begin.
“Your controversial opinion regarding the sexual abuse of children is a bit much for some of us,” he’ll sigh. “We cannot have such dissenting voices within the church.” You’ll sit, struck dumb.
“Thinking we shouldn’t fuck kids is controversial?” you’ll say, puzzled. He’ll immediately shush you.
“Please, my child. The walls have ears here.” He’ll drum his fingers on the desk as he considers just what to do with you. “Excommunication would be imprudent, given your record and the circumstances.” Then he’ll make a sucking sound through his teeth. “How do you feel about Alaska?”
You’ll stand up and bow to the pope, then walk out of the room, your shoulders drooping a little. You didn’t want to have your career with the church go this way, but sometimes it happens. At least you’re going to Alaska instead of one of those molesting priests. Maybe you’ll even be able to do some good there. We don’t know, we’re not that good at this future thing. For now we’ll just say Congratulations on Falling Out With the Church!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Congratulations on Removing the Pig Mask!
Today you’re a lady who poses nude on a fetish website for men who like women who are wearing latex pig masks.
“I’m more than just a pair of exposed breasts underneath a latex pig mask,” you’ll mutter at the photographer as he takes her picture repeatedly, the hum of the shutter growing steadily more irritating with each snapshot.
“I know, baby,” he’ll say, trying to keep the talent happy. But then he’ll pause for a moment. He’ll put down the camera and think for a second and realize you’re right. He’ll tap his lens with his gayest finger (right hand, ring finger) and then snap his fingers.
“What is it, Marco?” you’ll say, sitting up from the bearskin rug you were grinding on quite sensually. He’ll let out a sigh and throw up his hands.
“I want to try something wacky. Something crazy. You okay to do it with me now, girl?” He’ll fix you with a very serious look, so you’ll be left with no options but to nod. With that nod as affirmation of his purpose Marco will stride over to you and remove your pig mask from your head in one fluid gesture.
It’ll tear your hair a little coming off, but it’ll be worth it, so worth it, just to not smell latex for a few precious seconds.
“Sacre Coeur!” Marco will exclaim before taking as many snapshots as he can. For the first time in years he’ll feel inspired, and also that lingering feeling of resentment towards his mother will have abated for several seconds.
The two of you will have discovered a remarkable, profitable new market: naked photographs of women who have just recently had pig masks removed from their faces or are not wearing pig masks at all. It’s going to be huge!
Congratulations on Removing the Pig Mask!
“I’m more than just a pair of exposed breasts underneath a latex pig mask,” you’ll mutter at the photographer as he takes her picture repeatedly, the hum of the shutter growing steadily more irritating with each snapshot.
“I know, baby,” he’ll say, trying to keep the talent happy. But then he’ll pause for a moment. He’ll put down the camera and think for a second and realize you’re right. He’ll tap his lens with his gayest finger (right hand, ring finger) and then snap his fingers.
“What is it, Marco?” you’ll say, sitting up from the bearskin rug you were grinding on quite sensually. He’ll let out a sigh and throw up his hands.
“I want to try something wacky. Something crazy. You okay to do it with me now, girl?” He’ll fix you with a very serious look, so you’ll be left with no options but to nod. With that nod as affirmation of his purpose Marco will stride over to you and remove your pig mask from your head in one fluid gesture.
It’ll tear your hair a little coming off, but it’ll be worth it, so worth it, just to not smell latex for a few precious seconds.
“Sacre Coeur!” Marco will exclaim before taking as many snapshots as he can. For the first time in years he’ll feel inspired, and also that lingering feeling of resentment towards his mother will have abated for several seconds.
The two of you will have discovered a remarkable, profitable new market: naked photographs of women who have just recently had pig masks removed from their faces or are not wearing pig masks at all. It’s going to be huge!
Congratulations on Removing the Pig Mask!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Congratulations Bitch Ass Motherfucker!
You’re a man with the ass of a woman, which means you’re nickname is, you guessed it, Bitch Ass Motherfucker. It wouldn’t be quite so astute but most of the women you end up fucking have either had kids or adopted them, so they’re all more or less mothers in one way or another. You can’t help yourself, you’re just drawn to the energy they put out. It’s like they’re replacing the mom you never really got to know.
But even though you always seem to be falling in and out of love with the wrong ladies, most of whom have jobs or at the very least child support payments to keep them afloat, you’re never particularly financially solvent at any given moment. Since they’ve got kids already none of them are terribly psyched to take care of you too. But all of this is going to change when you meet an aspiring young porn producer who likes your somewhat androgynous look and immediately detects your charm.
He’ll sit you down at a coffee shop, tempting you with promises of that sandwich you so desperately need, and lay out his plan.
“I tape you in malls,” he’ll start. “With me so far?”
You’ll nod.
“Picking up moms. Good?”
Another nod will follow.
“Then I tape you taking them to a motel room and fucking the living shit out of them.”
You’ll bite your lip. “So basically doing what I do now?”
He’ll nod this time.
“But on film?”
He’ll nod again.
“SOLD!” you’ll stand up and shout, knocking your coffee on to a nearby mother who will be immediately and inexplicably attracted to you. The producer will pull out his video camera and film the whole thing as it goes down, creating the first in what will be a long list of titles that will fulfill all your financial needs for years to come, but bring you no closer to what you truly need: a woman who can fill that void left by your runaway mom in your heart.
Congratulations Bitch Ass Motherfucker!
But even though you always seem to be falling in and out of love with the wrong ladies, most of whom have jobs or at the very least child support payments to keep them afloat, you’re never particularly financially solvent at any given moment. Since they’ve got kids already none of them are terribly psyched to take care of you too. But all of this is going to change when you meet an aspiring young porn producer who likes your somewhat androgynous look and immediately detects your charm.
He’ll sit you down at a coffee shop, tempting you with promises of that sandwich you so desperately need, and lay out his plan.
“I tape you in malls,” he’ll start. “With me so far?”
You’ll nod.
“Picking up moms. Good?”
Another nod will follow.
“Then I tape you taking them to a motel room and fucking the living shit out of them.”
You’ll bite your lip. “So basically doing what I do now?”
He’ll nod this time.
“But on film?”
He’ll nod again.
“SOLD!” you’ll stand up and shout, knocking your coffee on to a nearby mother who will be immediately and inexplicably attracted to you. The producer will pull out his video camera and film the whole thing as it goes down, creating the first in what will be a long list of titles that will fulfill all your financial needs for years to come, but bring you no closer to what you truly need: a woman who can fill that void left by your runaway mom in your heart.
Congratulations Bitch Ass Motherfucker!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Congratulations Carpentry Student!
Today, in the middle of class, you’re going to cut off all your fingers.
“THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE TO WEAR YOUR GOGGLES!” the shop teacher will shout over your screams and the hum of the band saw. The other students will all nod grimly as they collect your fingers so that they can be donated to another class in the middle school for research purposes. Then you’ll be sent to the nurse’s office where you’ll receive a shot of whiskey before having your finger wounds cauterized by an iron due to budget cutbacks.
When you get back to class the shop teacher will announce the class’ next big assignment: making you some fake fingers! It’ll be a huge hit and you’ll be the most popular kid in school for at least another week. Invest in some lube or your dick is going to get pretty raw from all the handjobs you’ll be getting!
Congratulations Carpentry Student!
“THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE TO WEAR YOUR GOGGLES!” the shop teacher will shout over your screams and the hum of the band saw. The other students will all nod grimly as they collect your fingers so that they can be donated to another class in the middle school for research purposes. Then you’ll be sent to the nurse’s office where you’ll receive a shot of whiskey before having your finger wounds cauterized by an iron due to budget cutbacks.
When you get back to class the shop teacher will announce the class’ next big assignment: making you some fake fingers! It’ll be a huge hit and you’ll be the most popular kid in school for at least another week. Invest in some lube or your dick is going to get pretty raw from all the handjobs you’ll be getting!
Congratulations Carpentry Student!
Monday, January 10, 2011
Congratulations, The Chamber Wasn't Loaded!
Tonight you’re going to be sitting alone, reading your ex-girlfriend’s blog about how great her husband and kids are and how the only real mistake she ever made was sleeping with you for a three month period in 2004. She mentions that the trip the two of you took to Chicago that one time was a mistake too, but slightly smaller since she finally got to see some museums she’d wanted to for a long time and she can now truthfully say she’s been to Chicago, which is important if you’re a mom and you have to be on the subject of Chicago.
You’ll put the gun to your temple after reading that sentence, pull the trigger and hear the click. Then, smiling, you’ll refresh the page to see if she’s written anything new, maybe something about you making her happy at least once when you were together.
Congratulations, the Chamber Wasn’t Loaded!
You’ll put the gun to your temple after reading that sentence, pull the trigger and hear the click. Then, smiling, you’ll refresh the page to see if she’s written anything new, maybe something about you making her happy at least once when you were together.
Congratulations, the Chamber Wasn’t Loaded!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: The Best Games of 2010: Part One!
This one is going to be a doozie. In fact it’s going to end up as two articles, because 2010 was kind of an awesome year for games.
At first I didn’t really think so. I thought 2009 and 2008 had lain the groundwork for 2010 to fail. A lack of major releases late in the year that really excited me (apologies to Assassin’s Creed 2: Brotherhood, which I still haven’t played) also made me think that I’d have to pad this list with indie titles that were more conceptually interesting than truly good. But then I thought back to the summer and the early months of the year, where games were less something I enjoyed and more something that sustained me through one of the shittier years of my life. And I came up with a bunch of incredible titles, each one of them great in its own way.
Best Game I Thought Was Awful That My Friend Alex Made Me Play That I Think Is Pretty Fucking Cool Now – Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
So, full disclosure: this is one of those games that I love so much I haven’t even beaten it yet. Whatever, I’m still putting it on this list. Want to know why? Because it’s the sort of game that provides an experience, an experience worth having, and if you haven’t sat down and played it with a friend yet you really need to.
On its face this latest installment is just a slightly more transparent take on the whole Tomb Raider concept. You solve puzzles and kill faceless bad guys and giant, surprisingly dangerous bits of wildlife. Every once in a while you take on a puzzle that is much easier than it initially seems. Every once in a great while you’re going to get really frustrated or annoyed by really repetitive game play. A score system will give you access to guns and those tiny challenges will keep you pounding your head against your controller (and this is a controller based game, regardless of what platform you play it on – PC users should invest in a dual shock if they haven’t already acquired a current generation console with USB controllers) just to get that latest, seemingly insignificant and yet simultaneously critical bonus to your whatever statistic. Challenge rooms provide a nice diversion and break up the pace of the game, letting you know that you can fool around in “safe” areas without accidentally advancing what you’d have to be generous to call a story.
But all of this perfectly adequate game making is just a framework. It’s nothing special, not until you add in another person. And that’s when Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (hereafter referred to as LCATGOL) really loses its shit. LCATGOL takes a concept like co-op play and puzzle solving and applies it in such a way that you’ll be screaming into your microphone with each new joy and failure. You’ll be slamming your fist drunkenly into your desk at three AM trying to get through a level because you’ll be fucked if you’re going to replay this bullshit again and you’ll play an extra hour just because you want to hold on to all those sweet bonuses you received from previous stages.
It’s far from the perfect co-op game, but for a downloadable game I was going to ignore, a game with no retail release at all playing on one of the most worn out IPs in gaming history, it was nothing short of phenomenal to me when it all came together. If you can grab a ten dollar copy and have a friend who plays video games it is perhaps one of the most worthwhile purchases you can make. I cannot speak to its longevity as a title, or to whatever shape the writing of the game might take. All I can talk about is how the mechanics of the game unfold with two people, which is truly something to be cherished. If I’d played this game with anyone other than my friend Alex, if I’d played this game as anything other than a replacement for a running long-distance game night I have with friends once a week, if I’d played this game sober it might’ve seemed like a slightly less profound game to me. But the stars aligned for me, and if you have booze and friends and an internet connection there’s no reason they can’t align for you too. Get a friend, get a microphone, get a bottle of cheap bourbon and get a copy of this game so you can sit down to get your socks rocked off with a friend while you play until 3 AM, screaming at that bitch to stop letting go of the grappling hook.
Best Game That Reminded Me of a Broken Version of Modern Warfare – Call of Duty: Black Ops
I’ll keep this brief, because I’ve made my thoughts on this game pretty clear, but it deserves a mention on this list if only for how well designed the structure of the multiplayer is. It’s also perhaps the first Call of Duty that recognized just how delightful adding some absurdity into otherwise tremendously self-serious game play can be. A fucking Rambo crossbow? Remote-controlled bomb cars? A grenade called a Willy Pete? Fucking brilliant ways to insert humor into a style of play where last year’s iteration took itself so seriously it added tactical nukes to play. If you can find a way to purchase just the multiplayer for Call of Duty: Black Ops, by all means do so.
Oh, and if you can fix the bugginess of the game itself, please do.
Best Game That I Already Played Last Year – Dragon Age: Awakenings
Technically an expansion, but an expansion with enough new content and game play to be considered a title in its own right, I struggled with the concept of putting this game on my list for this year. But here it is, because in terms of bang-for-buck game play Dragon Age still delivered and proved that Bioware can still bring it, even on a truncated development schedule. They took a sprawling masterpiece like Dragon Age: Origins and, in Awakenings, turned it into some great and every bit as much worth playing.
The vibrant sense of place at play in Origins, the sense of a larger world that the best CRPGs manage so masterfully and the great, iterative RPG game play that Dragon Age has made its business so well is all there in Awakenings, in a more manageable package. I wouldn’t say it’s better, but it’s one of the best examples of traditional storytelling in games on the market and it’s by far one of the most rewarding play experiences I’ve had in the last year. In fact, I’d only have two complaints about it to be totally honest.
First, but not foremost, the ending rushes a bit and can quickly become baffling. Also some of the choices you make just don’t make sense. Both the city and the fortress being overrun regardless of how well defended they are, and all of your companions surviving either struggle arbitrarily? Kind of weak, but it is a conventional RPG. What’s less forgivable is just how similar this game is to Dragon Age.
I’m not really sure this is a problem. Dragon Age was a fantastic game, and I’ve got nothing against a second chance to enjoy what was already a fantastic game with some new enemies, teammates and nifty new powers. But it is worth noting that there’s little other than characters and plot to differentiate this from the first Dragon Age. The game uses a handful of new texture sets and offers up many of the same models and enemies that Origins used. One of the boss fights even seems to play on this, teasing you with the idea that you’ll have to fight several of the most potent foes of Origins and then resolving the entire fight in less than a moment through the use of a lyrium chandelier. Either way, it’s worth noting that Dragon Age: Awakenings was certainly the best expansion I played last year, even if it was a bit derivative of its predecessor. I’d be more than happy to play through six or seven more Dragon Age installments, each telling its own story in a new and interesting part of Ferelden. In fact I’m actually kind of worried about Dragon Age 2, which seems to be moving away from the formula that made Origins so great. Of course, part of that could be Mass Effect 2 panic leaking into the way I see the Dragon Age franchise.
Best Game to Come From Russia, Take Our Jeans and Leave Without Giving Me a Clear Idea of Just What the Fuck Was Going On – Metro 2033
One of my big surprises when I was looking through major (non-gaming) publication’s best of lists was seeing Metro 2033 on so many of them. I loved this game, although I’m not quite sure why, and I’m glad to see that people outside of the pedant press enjoyed it too. It really was worth looking at if you didn’t get a chance, and with Steam’s end of the year sale you could probably get a copy for a song. Go on and play it if you haven’t already. I’ll be here when you’re finished.
Great, right? The shooting isn’t airtight, and it breaks the mold of copying some of the better changes that Halo made to the genre, such as the ability to melee with any weapon, and moreover being able to physically overpower any enemy you find yourself fighting. It’s a game that’s all about making you feel weak and, sometimes, overwhelmed. I’ve never seen a game do “raid defense” missions quite so well, balancing a feeling of desperation with reasonable victory conditions. Perhaps part of how Metro 2033 accomplishes this, and indeed what makes it great, is through the way it treats ammunition: it makes it valuable.
In most games ammo is constantly replenished. Running over an enemy’s corpse will net you dozens and dozens of bullets and you’ll be able to wade into battle mowing down mother fuckers left and right. But in Metro 2033 the best ammo for the best weapons, the ammo that makes you gun feel like a gun instead of piece of shit trying to kill you along with mutants and bandits, is really really fucking rare. And it’s the currency you use to buy things. If you use all your powerful bullets you won’t be able to get that fancy new armor. You also might not survive to get it if you don’t fire some of those bullets, of course.
This resource management is at the core of every element of Metro. It’s harsh, though not in the way S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was. If you’re carless with your ammo you’ll be running out of it before long. If you aren’t watching your step above ground or in areas with toxic gas you might trigger traps or be caught off guard and get some cracks in your very necessary mask, potentially leading up to a breach which could kill you. Dawdle too long in these exposed areas, though, and you won’t have enough air filters to do your job. And you’ll be holding on to these filters for the entire game, so you’d do well to watch your supply.
It won’t kill you for rounding a corner too fast, nor will it make your faction stance way too complicated for any sane person to deal with, but it will punish you repeatedly when you make mistakes. It’ll punish you for underestimating those little fucking gas bubbles, for ignoring the resource s offered to you and for failing to pay attention to your surroundings. It’ll punish you and make you keep going on, making the game a little bit harder for you every time you fail, and that’ll suck. Hard. But it’ll never suck so badly that the game will be unplayable.
Metro 2033 is without a doubt the best constructed game in terms of its shifting difficulty, its variety of play options and the manner in which it forces you to make decisions without really informing you of their impact on the world. It’s not always clear just what’s up in the world of Metro 2033, but you’re always being asked to make judgments and keep moving on with the consequences. Few games are willing to shoulder you with real consequences, to occasionally give you little or no idea of just what’s at stake while asking you to make choices. Although it is at times sloppy and is clearly a product of an Eastern European design philosophy and development cycle it’s one of the best games I played last year, and even though there are many games it brings to mind there are none that are really quite like it. Now if only I could figure out what it did with all my jeans.
Best Game That Seemingly No One Played And Liked Except Me – Alpha Protocol
There’s a lot of RPG on here, and more specifically a lot of Baldur’s Gate’s runty little children running about here, but there’s a good reason. Bioware and Obsidian (formerly Black Isle), the studios that conspired to make one of the greatest RPGs of all time, have had an incredible year. Make that a fucking incredible year. More Obsidian than Bioware, considering how strong Bioware’s showing in previous years has been, and how quiet Obsidian has been until quite recently. But over the last year they came out with a bang, and the lesser part of that was Alpha Protocol’s PC release, a game that seemingly no one gave the love it deserved.
Alpha Protocol received abysmal scores from most reviewers, racking up a 73 rating on Metacritic when you consider the best reviews. Full consideration yields less flattering results, and drops the Metacritic average for the various versions down to 68. Games that are now broadly criticized as the worst titles of the year, games with fatal flaws and no ambition, still scored higher than that, and Alpha Protocol was made with a shoestring budget compared to games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty: Black Ops, games that failed many of their stated goals and did so without really bringing anything new to the table. Alpha Protocol was a new kind of game in a new kind of setting about the world we live in. It was one of the few games that was actually relevant in the last year.
Sure, it had problems. Bugs, balance issues, plot holes and dropped characters and content standing out like cartoon silhouettes in walls. But around all of these serious issues was a great, ambitious game about being part of a changing world, being an individual and about dealing with the consequences of actions. No game really was more transparent or adventurous in terms of how it explored the way games tell stories. Some were more deft, many had better writing and many were better designed, but the raw ambition of Alpha Protocol, the nakedness of its structure paired with the strength of its underpinning reason is just amazing.
Many people seemed to see it as something of an action-adventure title more than a role-playing title, a common problem with many third-person action-RPGs. But the fundamental underpinning of an RPG is at work in Alpha Protocol – the demand that you occupy a character and exist as that character in a world. The action trappings are but means to this end, means which often don’t seem to work as well as most people would like, which is fair. The combat of Alpha Protocol can be repetitive, sloppy and, at times, incoherent. Sometimes it’s even hilarious, such as when your character dances about during unarmed combat. But it never moves off message. If you use assault rifles you’re this kind of soldier. Shotguns? This kind. Pistols? Yet another kind. The choices you make change the game as an experience, whether you choose to stealth through the levels and go for the endurance bonuses that come with that choice or if you choose to kill every mother fucker in sight and earn weapon bonuses in the process.
This is to say nothing of a conversation system that, for the first time ever, actually impacts game play. And not just the endgame. The personal choices you make, the way you interact with your contemporaries and enemies and who you choose to kill or screw over when generates ripples, ripples that do more to change the overall course of the game than they do the play by play story. The only real problem I had with the game, aside from the occasional bug, was that I couldn’t put the moves on Sis. Although I guess that makes me kind of a creep, since she’s technically handicapped and possibly under-aged.
At first I didn’t really think so. I thought 2009 and 2008 had lain the groundwork for 2010 to fail. A lack of major releases late in the year that really excited me (apologies to Assassin’s Creed 2: Brotherhood, which I still haven’t played) also made me think that I’d have to pad this list with indie titles that were more conceptually interesting than truly good. But then I thought back to the summer and the early months of the year, where games were less something I enjoyed and more something that sustained me through one of the shittier years of my life. And I came up with a bunch of incredible titles, each one of them great in its own way.
Best Game I Thought Was Awful That My Friend Alex Made Me Play That I Think Is Pretty Fucking Cool Now – Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
So, full disclosure: this is one of those games that I love so much I haven’t even beaten it yet. Whatever, I’m still putting it on this list. Want to know why? Because it’s the sort of game that provides an experience, an experience worth having, and if you haven’t sat down and played it with a friend yet you really need to.
On its face this latest installment is just a slightly more transparent take on the whole Tomb Raider concept. You solve puzzles and kill faceless bad guys and giant, surprisingly dangerous bits of wildlife. Every once in a while you take on a puzzle that is much easier than it initially seems. Every once in a great while you’re going to get really frustrated or annoyed by really repetitive game play. A score system will give you access to guns and those tiny challenges will keep you pounding your head against your controller (and this is a controller based game, regardless of what platform you play it on – PC users should invest in a dual shock if they haven’t already acquired a current generation console with USB controllers) just to get that latest, seemingly insignificant and yet simultaneously critical bonus to your whatever statistic. Challenge rooms provide a nice diversion and break up the pace of the game, letting you know that you can fool around in “safe” areas without accidentally advancing what you’d have to be generous to call a story.
But all of this perfectly adequate game making is just a framework. It’s nothing special, not until you add in another person. And that’s when Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (hereafter referred to as LCATGOL) really loses its shit. LCATGOL takes a concept like co-op play and puzzle solving and applies it in such a way that you’ll be screaming into your microphone with each new joy and failure. You’ll be slamming your fist drunkenly into your desk at three AM trying to get through a level because you’ll be fucked if you’re going to replay this bullshit again and you’ll play an extra hour just because you want to hold on to all those sweet bonuses you received from previous stages.
It’s far from the perfect co-op game, but for a downloadable game I was going to ignore, a game with no retail release at all playing on one of the most worn out IPs in gaming history, it was nothing short of phenomenal to me when it all came together. If you can grab a ten dollar copy and have a friend who plays video games it is perhaps one of the most worthwhile purchases you can make. I cannot speak to its longevity as a title, or to whatever shape the writing of the game might take. All I can talk about is how the mechanics of the game unfold with two people, which is truly something to be cherished. If I’d played this game with anyone other than my friend Alex, if I’d played this game as anything other than a replacement for a running long-distance game night I have with friends once a week, if I’d played this game sober it might’ve seemed like a slightly less profound game to me. But the stars aligned for me, and if you have booze and friends and an internet connection there’s no reason they can’t align for you too. Get a friend, get a microphone, get a bottle of cheap bourbon and get a copy of this game so you can sit down to get your socks rocked off with a friend while you play until 3 AM, screaming at that bitch to stop letting go of the grappling hook.
Best Game That Reminded Me of a Broken Version of Modern Warfare – Call of Duty: Black Ops
I’ll keep this brief, because I’ve made my thoughts on this game pretty clear, but it deserves a mention on this list if only for how well designed the structure of the multiplayer is. It’s also perhaps the first Call of Duty that recognized just how delightful adding some absurdity into otherwise tremendously self-serious game play can be. A fucking Rambo crossbow? Remote-controlled bomb cars? A grenade called a Willy Pete? Fucking brilliant ways to insert humor into a style of play where last year’s iteration took itself so seriously it added tactical nukes to play. If you can find a way to purchase just the multiplayer for Call of Duty: Black Ops, by all means do so.
Oh, and if you can fix the bugginess of the game itself, please do.
Best Game That I Already Played Last Year – Dragon Age: Awakenings
Technically an expansion, but an expansion with enough new content and game play to be considered a title in its own right, I struggled with the concept of putting this game on my list for this year. But here it is, because in terms of bang-for-buck game play Dragon Age still delivered and proved that Bioware can still bring it, even on a truncated development schedule. They took a sprawling masterpiece like Dragon Age: Origins and, in Awakenings, turned it into some great and every bit as much worth playing.
The vibrant sense of place at play in Origins, the sense of a larger world that the best CRPGs manage so masterfully and the great, iterative RPG game play that Dragon Age has made its business so well is all there in Awakenings, in a more manageable package. I wouldn’t say it’s better, but it’s one of the best examples of traditional storytelling in games on the market and it’s by far one of the most rewarding play experiences I’ve had in the last year. In fact, I’d only have two complaints about it to be totally honest.
First, but not foremost, the ending rushes a bit and can quickly become baffling. Also some of the choices you make just don’t make sense. Both the city and the fortress being overrun regardless of how well defended they are, and all of your companions surviving either struggle arbitrarily? Kind of weak, but it is a conventional RPG. What’s less forgivable is just how similar this game is to Dragon Age.
I’m not really sure this is a problem. Dragon Age was a fantastic game, and I’ve got nothing against a second chance to enjoy what was already a fantastic game with some new enemies, teammates and nifty new powers. But it is worth noting that there’s little other than characters and plot to differentiate this from the first Dragon Age. The game uses a handful of new texture sets and offers up many of the same models and enemies that Origins used. One of the boss fights even seems to play on this, teasing you with the idea that you’ll have to fight several of the most potent foes of Origins and then resolving the entire fight in less than a moment through the use of a lyrium chandelier. Either way, it’s worth noting that Dragon Age: Awakenings was certainly the best expansion I played last year, even if it was a bit derivative of its predecessor. I’d be more than happy to play through six or seven more Dragon Age installments, each telling its own story in a new and interesting part of Ferelden. In fact I’m actually kind of worried about Dragon Age 2, which seems to be moving away from the formula that made Origins so great. Of course, part of that could be Mass Effect 2 panic leaking into the way I see the Dragon Age franchise.
Best Game to Come From Russia, Take Our Jeans and Leave Without Giving Me a Clear Idea of Just What the Fuck Was Going On – Metro 2033
One of my big surprises when I was looking through major (non-gaming) publication’s best of lists was seeing Metro 2033 on so many of them. I loved this game, although I’m not quite sure why, and I’m glad to see that people outside of the pedant press enjoyed it too. It really was worth looking at if you didn’t get a chance, and with Steam’s end of the year sale you could probably get a copy for a song. Go on and play it if you haven’t already. I’ll be here when you’re finished.
Great, right? The shooting isn’t airtight, and it breaks the mold of copying some of the better changes that Halo made to the genre, such as the ability to melee with any weapon, and moreover being able to physically overpower any enemy you find yourself fighting. It’s a game that’s all about making you feel weak and, sometimes, overwhelmed. I’ve never seen a game do “raid defense” missions quite so well, balancing a feeling of desperation with reasonable victory conditions. Perhaps part of how Metro 2033 accomplishes this, and indeed what makes it great, is through the way it treats ammunition: it makes it valuable.
In most games ammo is constantly replenished. Running over an enemy’s corpse will net you dozens and dozens of bullets and you’ll be able to wade into battle mowing down mother fuckers left and right. But in Metro 2033 the best ammo for the best weapons, the ammo that makes you gun feel like a gun instead of piece of shit trying to kill you along with mutants and bandits, is really really fucking rare. And it’s the currency you use to buy things. If you use all your powerful bullets you won’t be able to get that fancy new armor. You also might not survive to get it if you don’t fire some of those bullets, of course.
This resource management is at the core of every element of Metro. It’s harsh, though not in the way S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was. If you’re carless with your ammo you’ll be running out of it before long. If you aren’t watching your step above ground or in areas with toxic gas you might trigger traps or be caught off guard and get some cracks in your very necessary mask, potentially leading up to a breach which could kill you. Dawdle too long in these exposed areas, though, and you won’t have enough air filters to do your job. And you’ll be holding on to these filters for the entire game, so you’d do well to watch your supply.
It won’t kill you for rounding a corner too fast, nor will it make your faction stance way too complicated for any sane person to deal with, but it will punish you repeatedly when you make mistakes. It’ll punish you for underestimating those little fucking gas bubbles, for ignoring the resource s offered to you and for failing to pay attention to your surroundings. It’ll punish you and make you keep going on, making the game a little bit harder for you every time you fail, and that’ll suck. Hard. But it’ll never suck so badly that the game will be unplayable.
Metro 2033 is without a doubt the best constructed game in terms of its shifting difficulty, its variety of play options and the manner in which it forces you to make decisions without really informing you of their impact on the world. It’s not always clear just what’s up in the world of Metro 2033, but you’re always being asked to make judgments and keep moving on with the consequences. Few games are willing to shoulder you with real consequences, to occasionally give you little or no idea of just what’s at stake while asking you to make choices. Although it is at times sloppy and is clearly a product of an Eastern European design philosophy and development cycle it’s one of the best games I played last year, and even though there are many games it brings to mind there are none that are really quite like it. Now if only I could figure out what it did with all my jeans.
Best Game That Seemingly No One Played And Liked Except Me – Alpha Protocol
There’s a lot of RPG on here, and more specifically a lot of Baldur’s Gate’s runty little children running about here, but there’s a good reason. Bioware and Obsidian (formerly Black Isle), the studios that conspired to make one of the greatest RPGs of all time, have had an incredible year. Make that a fucking incredible year. More Obsidian than Bioware, considering how strong Bioware’s showing in previous years has been, and how quiet Obsidian has been until quite recently. But over the last year they came out with a bang, and the lesser part of that was Alpha Protocol’s PC release, a game that seemingly no one gave the love it deserved.
Alpha Protocol received abysmal scores from most reviewers, racking up a 73 rating on Metacritic when you consider the best reviews. Full consideration yields less flattering results, and drops the Metacritic average for the various versions down to 68. Games that are now broadly criticized as the worst titles of the year, games with fatal flaws and no ambition, still scored higher than that, and Alpha Protocol was made with a shoestring budget compared to games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty: Black Ops, games that failed many of their stated goals and did so without really bringing anything new to the table. Alpha Protocol was a new kind of game in a new kind of setting about the world we live in. It was one of the few games that was actually relevant in the last year.
Sure, it had problems. Bugs, balance issues, plot holes and dropped characters and content standing out like cartoon silhouettes in walls. But around all of these serious issues was a great, ambitious game about being part of a changing world, being an individual and about dealing with the consequences of actions. No game really was more transparent or adventurous in terms of how it explored the way games tell stories. Some were more deft, many had better writing and many were better designed, but the raw ambition of Alpha Protocol, the nakedness of its structure paired with the strength of its underpinning reason is just amazing.
Many people seemed to see it as something of an action-adventure title more than a role-playing title, a common problem with many third-person action-RPGs. But the fundamental underpinning of an RPG is at work in Alpha Protocol – the demand that you occupy a character and exist as that character in a world. The action trappings are but means to this end, means which often don’t seem to work as well as most people would like, which is fair. The combat of Alpha Protocol can be repetitive, sloppy and, at times, incoherent. Sometimes it’s even hilarious, such as when your character dances about during unarmed combat. But it never moves off message. If you use assault rifles you’re this kind of soldier. Shotguns? This kind. Pistols? Yet another kind. The choices you make change the game as an experience, whether you choose to stealth through the levels and go for the endurance bonuses that come with that choice or if you choose to kill every mother fucker in sight and earn weapon bonuses in the process.
This is to say nothing of a conversation system that, for the first time ever, actually impacts game play. And not just the endgame. The personal choices you make, the way you interact with your contemporaries and enemies and who you choose to kill or screw over when generates ripples, ripples that do more to change the overall course of the game than they do the play by play story. The only real problem I had with the game, aside from the occasional bug, was that I couldn’t put the moves on Sis. Although I guess that makes me kind of a creep, since she’s technically handicapped and possibly under-aged.
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