Today you’re going to get a little bit wasted and wander through Chinatown. Usually when this happens and a white person is involved they just end up getting their ass kicked, their wallet removed and their supine form deposited in a place where it will be discovered, but not too quickly so as to insure that the honky in question suffers adequately. But you’re no average honky. You’re Kurt Russell.
And you’re going to hit the stress of Chinatown like an ancient mystical dragon or a sweet tattoo thereof on some dude’s chest. Every time someone steps to you you’ll lay them out with a sweet hay maker from one of your meaty fists.
You’ll stumble from bar to bar in this brazen fashion, laying Orientals low left and right, until you finally come to a massive abandoned warehouse. At this point you’ll be so drunk that you’ll believe you’re inside the story of the John Carpenter film Big Trouble in Little China and you’ll head into the abandoned warehouse, believing that this is your chance to vanquish those god damn sorcerers once and for all.
Surprisingly you’ll be totally correct about the warehouse housing a group of ancient wizards. The moment you step in the door they’ll summon massive winds to push you out. You’ll press forward against them, those years of mime training finally coming in handy. After a few minutes of struggle, however, one of the spell-weavers will recognize you.
“Kurt Russell?” he’ll ask in a stage whisper, before shouting. “Is that Kurt Russell?! Of stage and screen fame?!”
“Fuck yes!” you’ll shout back. Laughing, he’ll motion for his friends to stop casting you out of their mystical warehouse and get a piece of paper ready so that he can get your autograph, but you won’t notice that. You’ll be so intent on beating the shit out of every Asian dude you see that you’ll just lay him out as he tries to hand you a pen.
His friends will sigh. This happens every time a celebrity comes into their secret lair, apparently, and it always ends the same way. They’ll combine their powers and shock you within an inch of your life and leave you on the outskirts of Chinatown, where you’ll be picked up by the police early the next morning. The papers will run a story about your nearly fatal blood alcohol level, knowing nothing of the strange mystical underworld you stumbled upon in your drunken stupor.
Congratulations on Feeling Kind of Invincible!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Congratulations Piece of Paper!
You think you’re so cool, don’t you, piece of paper? Today you’re going to waft on a updraft and inspire a young woman to get an abortion by reminding her that life is actually just a system of natural events that, while serendipitous, are only as sacred as we can make them. You’re going to make her realize that her life shouldn’t end because her boyfriend insisted on not wearing a condom and then broke up with her because “her vagina was too tight.”
Then you’re going to flutter up and inspire a young poet to write a poem entitled “Paper at 12:42 PM.” It’s going to be super pretentious and make a lot of people think they’re smarter than they really are. Academia will write a number of essays about how amazing and meta the piece is, never realizing it’s actually about a fucking piece of paper outside some shithead’s window.
Then you’re going to blind a hang glider who is going for the world record in hang gliding, having been launched from a plane high above the city you’re fluttering up through. You’ll make him lose track of his direct and nose down way too far, careening himself into the earth at breakneck speed and dying horribly in the process.
So we’ll forgive you for the second part and just remember you for the first and the last big things you accomplished today. Congratulations Piece of Paper!
Then you’re going to flutter up and inspire a young poet to write a poem entitled “Paper at 12:42 PM.” It’s going to be super pretentious and make a lot of people think they’re smarter than they really are. Academia will write a number of essays about how amazing and meta the piece is, never realizing it’s actually about a fucking piece of paper outside some shithead’s window.
Then you’re going to blind a hang glider who is going for the world record in hang gliding, having been launched from a plane high above the city you’re fluttering up through. You’ll make him lose track of his direct and nose down way too far, careening himself into the earth at breakneck speed and dying horribly in the process.
So we’ll forgive you for the second part and just remember you for the first and the last big things you accomplished today. Congratulations Piece of Paper!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Congratulations Miscreant!
In every teen sports movie there’s that one kid who doesn’t really seem like a part of the team but is inexplicably attached to it for some asinine reason. Maybe someone has cancer. Maybe his parents are divorced or his dad is an alcoholic or a shell shocked Vietnam vet or whatever. It doesn’t really matter.
The point is that today is your day. Today Emilio Estevez will have given up hope for you and your rag teammates. He’ll think that there’s no way a group of people stricken with a somewhat troublesome but totally overblown condition (example: vaginas) could possibly win a game of sports. But you’re going to walk into his office or apartment or maybe find his van in a laundromat parking lot or something and lay it all on the line for him. You’re going to tell him about your temporally appropriate problem which requires resolution and he’s gong to have a moment.
He’s going to think about what you have to say for a minute, then dismiss you. He might throw something dangerous at you, so be careful. And then he’ll leave.
At this point you’ll go to the game and lead all your teammates on, telling them that he promised he’d show you. See, you feel like winning this game will solve your non-specific problem. And you know that your teammates need it to for their various non-specific problems that require seemingly mystical absolution attached to a sporting event. So you’ll lie.
But unbeknownst to you the hopeful lie you tell about your coach showing up again will actually be kinda true. Because while Emilio Estevez is driving for the state line or the Mexican border or the airport or whatever he’s going to think about what you said and have a change of heart and maybe, if it’s appropriate, think about legally adopting you.
He’ll turn around from his destination and arrive at sporting event location, where he’ll see you and your team playing sport like a group of champions. He’ll see you using the lessons he taught you and applying them and he’ll feel deeply redeemed and completely unnecessary. He’ll feel like a dad.
He’ll watch you playing sports, acting like a little version of him, and then he’ll realize he shouldn’t kill himself. Which is good, because if he did we’d never get a good follow up to Repo Man, which we’re sure he’ll do when he’s in his mid seventies at this point.
Congratulations Miscreant!
The point is that today is your day. Today Emilio Estevez will have given up hope for you and your rag teammates. He’ll think that there’s no way a group of people stricken with a somewhat troublesome but totally overblown condition (example: vaginas) could possibly win a game of sports. But you’re going to walk into his office or apartment or maybe find his van in a laundromat parking lot or something and lay it all on the line for him. You’re going to tell him about your temporally appropriate problem which requires resolution and he’s gong to have a moment.
He’s going to think about what you have to say for a minute, then dismiss you. He might throw something dangerous at you, so be careful. And then he’ll leave.
At this point you’ll go to the game and lead all your teammates on, telling them that he promised he’d show you. See, you feel like winning this game will solve your non-specific problem. And you know that your teammates need it to for their various non-specific problems that require seemingly mystical absolution attached to a sporting event. So you’ll lie.
But unbeknownst to you the hopeful lie you tell about your coach showing up again will actually be kinda true. Because while Emilio Estevez is driving for the state line or the Mexican border or the airport or whatever he’s going to think about what you said and have a change of heart and maybe, if it’s appropriate, think about legally adopting you.
He’ll turn around from his destination and arrive at sporting event location, where he’ll see you and your team playing sport like a group of champions. He’ll see you using the lessons he taught you and applying them and he’ll feel deeply redeemed and completely unnecessary. He’ll feel like a dad.
He’ll watch you playing sports, acting like a little version of him, and then he’ll realize he shouldn’t kill himself. Which is good, because if he did we’d never get a good follow up to Repo Man, which we’re sure he’ll do when he’s in his mid seventies at this point.
Congratulations Miscreant!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Congratulations Yiffers!
Furries are an oft misunderstood subculture. Sure, they wear costumes and have louder sex than they should and are, almost as a rule, never people you’d want to see naked, but they’re not bad people. Not at all. In fact many of them frequently make charitable donations to organizations they’ve responsibly researched. An even smaller subsection thereof also volunteers. Like, at shelters and stuff.
But no one notices these things when Dateline runs a piece about how vile and unsightly you are as a social group. No, they all jump on the hate train to torch-ville and force you to relocate for the third time this year, looking for another quiet suburb where you can watch your pets frolic while you tele-commute into Redmond. Well today you’re going to wake up, look at your cute-and-sexy-tiger costume and declare “No more!” to no one in particular.
You’ll roll out of bed in your jam jams and pad over to your laptop, where you’ll pull up a compiler window and start coding your brains out. In six hours you’ll be halfway done with a website for a theoretical community of furries who can live and quietly pursue their mid-level careers in peace. You’ll feel drained, so you’ll put on a bathrobe and stumble out of your front door, walking to the coffee shop where your partner works in your flippy-floppies.
You’ll fall through the door Kramer style, to the chagrin of your partner’s co-workers, before you stumble up to the counter and gasp.
“Coffee,” you’ll pant, exhausted from the effort of dragging your fat ass three blocks without the use of a Segway. Your partner will shake his head and smile, delivering the steaming hot beverage without a word.
“Samuel,” you’ll gaps at him as he sets it down, clasping his wrist. “Important.”
“Sit down,” he’ll say, patting your wrist. “I’ll take my fifteen and then we can talk. Kay?”
You’ll bob your head, stumbling to a seat and sitting with your bathrobe a little bit too open, which won’t result in the cops being called because you’ll still be wearing your jam-jams. It’ll just look awful.
After a few minutes Sam will sit down across your from you looking exhausted. He’ll have his apron wadded under his arm and he’ll look like he’s ready to go home.
“So what’s going on, hon?” he’ll ask. You’ll lay the whole plan out for him: a collective living area, located conveniently in the suburbs of Seattle, where Furries can come to just be themselves. No more judgment, no worries of discovery, no more troubles from people who just can’t accept the way you like to fuck.
Samuel will grow rapt as you go on, his exhaustion vanishing.
“Yes,” he’ll say. ‘It’s perfect.”
You’ll smile and kiss his hand, still breathing heavily, and get up to leave. Between your web-design skills and his previously useless degree in marketing you know you’ll be able to make it work. And as you shuffle home you’ll look so bright and full of hope that, for the first time in years, people will think “Wow, he looks happy” instead of “That man is revolting” when they first look at you.
But you’ll still look horrible, just so you know. Maybe do some sit-ups once or twice a week?
Congratulations Yiffers!
But no one notices these things when Dateline runs a piece about how vile and unsightly you are as a social group. No, they all jump on the hate train to torch-ville and force you to relocate for the third time this year, looking for another quiet suburb where you can watch your pets frolic while you tele-commute into Redmond. Well today you’re going to wake up, look at your cute-and-sexy-tiger costume and declare “No more!” to no one in particular.
You’ll roll out of bed in your jam jams and pad over to your laptop, where you’ll pull up a compiler window and start coding your brains out. In six hours you’ll be halfway done with a website for a theoretical community of furries who can live and quietly pursue their mid-level careers in peace. You’ll feel drained, so you’ll put on a bathrobe and stumble out of your front door, walking to the coffee shop where your partner works in your flippy-floppies.
You’ll fall through the door Kramer style, to the chagrin of your partner’s co-workers, before you stumble up to the counter and gasp.
“Coffee,” you’ll pant, exhausted from the effort of dragging your fat ass three blocks without the use of a Segway. Your partner will shake his head and smile, delivering the steaming hot beverage without a word.
“Samuel,” you’ll gaps at him as he sets it down, clasping his wrist. “Important.”
“Sit down,” he’ll say, patting your wrist. “I’ll take my fifteen and then we can talk. Kay?”
You’ll bob your head, stumbling to a seat and sitting with your bathrobe a little bit too open, which won’t result in the cops being called because you’ll still be wearing your jam-jams. It’ll just look awful.
After a few minutes Sam will sit down across your from you looking exhausted. He’ll have his apron wadded under his arm and he’ll look like he’s ready to go home.
“So what’s going on, hon?” he’ll ask. You’ll lay the whole plan out for him: a collective living area, located conveniently in the suburbs of Seattle, where Furries can come to just be themselves. No more judgment, no worries of discovery, no more troubles from people who just can’t accept the way you like to fuck.
Samuel will grow rapt as you go on, his exhaustion vanishing.
“Yes,” he’ll say. ‘It’s perfect.”
You’ll smile and kiss his hand, still breathing heavily, and get up to leave. Between your web-design skills and his previously useless degree in marketing you know you’ll be able to make it work. And as you shuffle home you’ll look so bright and full of hope that, for the first time in years, people will think “Wow, he looks happy” instead of “That man is revolting” when they first look at you.
But you’ll still look horrible, just so you know. Maybe do some sit-ups once or twice a week?
Congratulations Yiffers!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Snipe Snipe!
I’m on top of a building, far from my target. I’m staring down the scope of my rifle, a Barrett fifty cal. Unlike most Barretts in video games this one is set up the way Barretts are in the field, stationary, stabilized by some sort of theoretical gel layer. It also has unlimited ammo, for some strange reason, but hey. It’s a video game.
I’m prompted to wait patiently for the correct conditions, which context clues like flags and urgency in the voice of my spotter will inform me of. These clues will tell me when it is time to shoot my weapon, eliminating my lone target. After that I’ll need to use my tools properly so that I can resolve the issue before moving on to the game proper. In the game proper I won’t be a sniper anymore, though. I’ll have to hold my breath to aim straight. My gun will be malleable again and I’ll be prompted to run between shots.
I will no longer be a sniper. I will be moving quickly from place to place, sharp-shooting when I can. I won’t be patient. I won’t be able to be patient. The rest of the game will be one made dash towards freedom. This is the way most games are.
Most games treat sniping as a battle of reflexes rather than one of patience. In Borderlands it’s a matter of rapidly moving from target to target, pulling off flawless headshot after flawless headshot. In Call of Duty’s laudable multiplayer it’s a matter of picking a shot and then running madly after you make your kill, shifting position to avoid killcam retribution.
Even though some games occasionally do make sniping feel like the patient hunt that I understand it to be even games with “sniper” in the title are usually little more than reflex games for shifty loners. But there are a few games that break the mold, games about patience and consideration, and I’d like to honor those games in this segment.
1 – Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty 6 – Spec Ops
Most games want you to feel invulnerable during single player missions. Call of Duty 4 is especially guilty of this, often lending you hundreds and hundreds of allies during combat, endlessly streaming from some unknown font into battle beside you. But Call of Duty 4 does something bold midway through the game. After the first twist, the necessary death you have to endure, it puts players through their paces in one of the most harrowing missions in video game history: the sniper mission.
For the first time you’re told to hold your fire. For the first time avoiding a kill is the better tactical decision. Running and gunning is not an option. Shots have to be carefully chosen, rules of engagement selected painstakingly. Failure to consider your circumstances thoroughly enough is tantamount to suicide. And even though it all resolves in a fairly traditional gun battle, following a “meh” puzzle sequence that I began the article with, Call of Duty 4 offered up a remarkable sniping experience, one that was every bit as harrowing as you’d expect. Outnumbered, outgunned, you can’t be a font of violence and expect to survive. You have to play it smart. You have to choose your battles if you want to live.
Call of Duty 6’s spec ops had some missions in this vein as well, all the more impressive for the fact that they’re shared experiences. Creeping through snow capped peaks and Chernobyl fields with a friend is so much more fun, and while the levels are challenging they’re more rewarding than the entire meticulously designed single player campaign. Call of Duty 6 deserves a lot of criticism for riding on the coattails of its predecessor, for muddying an excellently balanced multiplayer system with an excess of bells and whistles and completely mistreating their consumer base with absurdly priced expansions that provide, at best, a handful of additional play scenarios that seem to favor only the most rapacious of players.
But the developers, as terrible as many of their choices were, deserve plenty of credit for creating co-op missions that allow players to play through some of the best sniper missions in video game history as part of a tandem pair. Creeping through the woods, carefully picking your shots while whispering harshly to your friend over your microphone, praying you won’t be noticed. Call of Duty 6 delivered handsomely on this front, and has some of the best sniper-specific game design I’ve ever seen.
2 – S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Stalker (spelled without periods from here on) is a mess of a game. It sports a realistic shooting game, frustratingly so. Guns completely lose their accuracy at a certain point, iron sights and scopes failing when you try to engage past your weapon’s effective range. Late in the game players finally acquire some decent sniper rifles and suddenly the game shifts completely. Where once running and gunning from piece of cover and choke point to piece of cover and choke point was the order of the day suddenly carefully selecting the way you want to engage enemies and moving forward based on those choices becomes the best way to play. Once you get your hands on a Dragunov and a handful of bullets the game becomes a calculus of how to engage each group of enemies at range.
The game is already enough about creeping and choosing your battles. But once you get some solid sniper rifles it becomes even more severe in the way it asks player to dictate their pacing. While the play is still far from perfect, with horrible enemy AI, bugs abounding and incredibly punishing late game scenarios that will consistently fuck up and force you to replay hours and hours of game play because of scripting errors, Stalker still sports one of the most interesting and intense open world sniping experiences I’ve seen. The painfully conservative resource management that the game enforces at certain moments, paired with unforgiving enemy AI and constantly shifting deadly terrain forces players to make choices about where and how to fight.
It forces players to think about their relative position to their enemies, their cover and their visibility. It forces players to consider range and accuracy and all the other factors that games normally ignore. It forces players to carefully choose each shot, and there’s no better shorthand for the behavior that Stalker encourages than the word “sniper.” Sure, it’s far from perfect, but its twin requirements of stealth and caution make it one harrowing experience, especially as you wander deeper and deeper into the ruined city.
3 – Far Cry 2
It’s been a while since I’ve praised Far Cry 2, hasn’t it? It’s not that I don’t love Far Cry 2 anymore. Far from it. It’s just that I’ve been distracted. Baby, you gotta know I still love you. Because there’s nothing quite like the feel of scouting an enemy position, watching them cycle in and out of range and carefully choosing the order you’re going to engage targets in. There’s nothing quite like the tension as you manually work your Springfield’s bolt to take down a squad of enemies with five perfectly placed shots. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as the execution of a perfect ambush in the African savannah.
See all the technical issues that Stalker has? Are completely absent from Far Cry 2, which remains, I think, the best open world game ever made (apologies to Brutal Legend, which kind of fails as an open world game in comparison). Far Cry 2’s technology works great, and even when it doesn’t it seems to improve the experience rather than destroying it. The occasional physics glitch, a necessity in a game like Far Cry 2, adds a bit of humor to an otherwise stark and unforgiving world. And that’s the worst I’ve run into in over one hundred hours of play.
Far Cry 2 immerses you in your character’s skin through this masterful weaving of well designed tech, minimalist UI and, at least at harder difficulties, pathetically human frailty. On my current playthrough I’ve been working on beating the game on the hardest difficulty setting, and each time I rush into battle I find myself being gunned down mercilessly. The way I win? By carefully selecting my shots, drawing enemies out and patiently waiting in my vantage point until I’ve got my opponents winnowed down enough for me to finish them off up close.
The conservative ammunition reserves Far Cry 2 forces upon players, along with other relatively strict supply limits on higher difficulties, makes choosing how and when to fight an absolutely critical decision to make. And, all too often, the best way to fight is by choosing a good vantage point and pulling out your high powered rifle.
Sure, the AI isn’t perfect, but the feeling of observing a camp, watching for enemy positions and, occasionally, searching madly for a sniper who may or may not give himself away with each carefully selected shot is still an intense experience, even with the occasionally terrible enemy behavior. And, for my money’s worth, there’s nothing quite like setting up shop on a hill and, one by one, picking off baffled enemies as they run about, horrified at what I have wrought upon them.
Does feeling this way make me a bad person? Probably. But there’s something deeply rewarding and satisfying about playing a game where your stealth and consideration are rewarded and your carelessness is punished severely. These games all champion this form of play, and for that they deserve recognition. So go on, play them again. They’re all old enough to be in the digital bargain bin, and they’ve all held up wonderfully, especially as sniping games.
I’m prompted to wait patiently for the correct conditions, which context clues like flags and urgency in the voice of my spotter will inform me of. These clues will tell me when it is time to shoot my weapon, eliminating my lone target. After that I’ll need to use my tools properly so that I can resolve the issue before moving on to the game proper. In the game proper I won’t be a sniper anymore, though. I’ll have to hold my breath to aim straight. My gun will be malleable again and I’ll be prompted to run between shots.
I will no longer be a sniper. I will be moving quickly from place to place, sharp-shooting when I can. I won’t be patient. I won’t be able to be patient. The rest of the game will be one made dash towards freedom. This is the way most games are.
Most games treat sniping as a battle of reflexes rather than one of patience. In Borderlands it’s a matter of rapidly moving from target to target, pulling off flawless headshot after flawless headshot. In Call of Duty’s laudable multiplayer it’s a matter of picking a shot and then running madly after you make your kill, shifting position to avoid killcam retribution.
Even though some games occasionally do make sniping feel like the patient hunt that I understand it to be even games with “sniper” in the title are usually little more than reflex games for shifty loners. But there are a few games that break the mold, games about patience and consideration, and I’d like to honor those games in this segment.
1 – Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty 6 – Spec Ops
Most games want you to feel invulnerable during single player missions. Call of Duty 4 is especially guilty of this, often lending you hundreds and hundreds of allies during combat, endlessly streaming from some unknown font into battle beside you. But Call of Duty 4 does something bold midway through the game. After the first twist, the necessary death you have to endure, it puts players through their paces in one of the most harrowing missions in video game history: the sniper mission.
For the first time you’re told to hold your fire. For the first time avoiding a kill is the better tactical decision. Running and gunning is not an option. Shots have to be carefully chosen, rules of engagement selected painstakingly. Failure to consider your circumstances thoroughly enough is tantamount to suicide. And even though it all resolves in a fairly traditional gun battle, following a “meh” puzzle sequence that I began the article with, Call of Duty 4 offered up a remarkable sniping experience, one that was every bit as harrowing as you’d expect. Outnumbered, outgunned, you can’t be a font of violence and expect to survive. You have to play it smart. You have to choose your battles if you want to live.
Call of Duty 6’s spec ops had some missions in this vein as well, all the more impressive for the fact that they’re shared experiences. Creeping through snow capped peaks and Chernobyl fields with a friend is so much more fun, and while the levels are challenging they’re more rewarding than the entire meticulously designed single player campaign. Call of Duty 6 deserves a lot of criticism for riding on the coattails of its predecessor, for muddying an excellently balanced multiplayer system with an excess of bells and whistles and completely mistreating their consumer base with absurdly priced expansions that provide, at best, a handful of additional play scenarios that seem to favor only the most rapacious of players.
But the developers, as terrible as many of their choices were, deserve plenty of credit for creating co-op missions that allow players to play through some of the best sniper missions in video game history as part of a tandem pair. Creeping through the woods, carefully picking your shots while whispering harshly to your friend over your microphone, praying you won’t be noticed. Call of Duty 6 delivered handsomely on this front, and has some of the best sniper-specific game design I’ve ever seen.
2 – S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Stalker (spelled without periods from here on) is a mess of a game. It sports a realistic shooting game, frustratingly so. Guns completely lose their accuracy at a certain point, iron sights and scopes failing when you try to engage past your weapon’s effective range. Late in the game players finally acquire some decent sniper rifles and suddenly the game shifts completely. Where once running and gunning from piece of cover and choke point to piece of cover and choke point was the order of the day suddenly carefully selecting the way you want to engage enemies and moving forward based on those choices becomes the best way to play. Once you get your hands on a Dragunov and a handful of bullets the game becomes a calculus of how to engage each group of enemies at range.
The game is already enough about creeping and choosing your battles. But once you get some solid sniper rifles it becomes even more severe in the way it asks player to dictate their pacing. While the play is still far from perfect, with horrible enemy AI, bugs abounding and incredibly punishing late game scenarios that will consistently fuck up and force you to replay hours and hours of game play because of scripting errors, Stalker still sports one of the most interesting and intense open world sniping experiences I’ve seen. The painfully conservative resource management that the game enforces at certain moments, paired with unforgiving enemy AI and constantly shifting deadly terrain forces players to make choices about where and how to fight.
It forces players to think about their relative position to their enemies, their cover and their visibility. It forces players to consider range and accuracy and all the other factors that games normally ignore. It forces players to carefully choose each shot, and there’s no better shorthand for the behavior that Stalker encourages than the word “sniper.” Sure, it’s far from perfect, but its twin requirements of stealth and caution make it one harrowing experience, especially as you wander deeper and deeper into the ruined city.
3 – Far Cry 2
It’s been a while since I’ve praised Far Cry 2, hasn’t it? It’s not that I don’t love Far Cry 2 anymore. Far from it. It’s just that I’ve been distracted. Baby, you gotta know I still love you. Because there’s nothing quite like the feel of scouting an enemy position, watching them cycle in and out of range and carefully choosing the order you’re going to engage targets in. There’s nothing quite like the tension as you manually work your Springfield’s bolt to take down a squad of enemies with five perfectly placed shots. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as the execution of a perfect ambush in the African savannah.
See all the technical issues that Stalker has? Are completely absent from Far Cry 2, which remains, I think, the best open world game ever made (apologies to Brutal Legend, which kind of fails as an open world game in comparison). Far Cry 2’s technology works great, and even when it doesn’t it seems to improve the experience rather than destroying it. The occasional physics glitch, a necessity in a game like Far Cry 2, adds a bit of humor to an otherwise stark and unforgiving world. And that’s the worst I’ve run into in over one hundred hours of play.
Far Cry 2 immerses you in your character’s skin through this masterful weaving of well designed tech, minimalist UI and, at least at harder difficulties, pathetically human frailty. On my current playthrough I’ve been working on beating the game on the hardest difficulty setting, and each time I rush into battle I find myself being gunned down mercilessly. The way I win? By carefully selecting my shots, drawing enemies out and patiently waiting in my vantage point until I’ve got my opponents winnowed down enough for me to finish them off up close.
The conservative ammunition reserves Far Cry 2 forces upon players, along with other relatively strict supply limits on higher difficulties, makes choosing how and when to fight an absolutely critical decision to make. And, all too often, the best way to fight is by choosing a good vantage point and pulling out your high powered rifle.
Sure, the AI isn’t perfect, but the feeling of observing a camp, watching for enemy positions and, occasionally, searching madly for a sniper who may or may not give himself away with each carefully selected shot is still an intense experience, even with the occasionally terrible enemy behavior. And, for my money’s worth, there’s nothing quite like setting up shop on a hill and, one by one, picking off baffled enemies as they run about, horrified at what I have wrought upon them.
Does feeling this way make me a bad person? Probably. But there’s something deeply rewarding and satisfying about playing a game where your stealth and consideration are rewarded and your carelessness is punished severely. These games all champion this form of play, and for that they deserve recognition. So go on, play them again. They’re all old enough to be in the digital bargain bin, and they’ve all held up wonderfully, especially as sniping games.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Congratulations on Your Sweet New Chrysalis!
You’re a larvae of some kind someone saw on the side of the road today and we just wanted to say that your new chrysalis looks amazing. Seriously, we know you put a lot of effort into growing it and we just wanted to let you know that it shows. You look fantastic and Mary was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight or something. Just send us an email with your number and we’ll slide it her way.
Congratulations on Your Sweet New Chrysalis!
Congratulations on Your Sweet New Chrysalis!
Friday, October 1, 2010
Congratulations Fed!
You’re a young up and coming FBI agent with nothing to lose and everything to prove. Ever since your dad was killed by a ghost during your childhood during a home invasion gone wrong you’ve dedicated your career to cleaning up the streets and removing the profound threat that is specters in America.
But the fat cats who run the FBI haven’t been listening. Whenever you tell them about the dangers posed by spooks they just laugh it off and assign you to some low-level investigation of a murder that involved crossing state lines or some securities fraud that cost millions of people their jobs. But you’ve been doing so well lately that today they’re going to let you do your thing. You’re going to get a sassy, attractive female partner and you’re going to set out to the heart of the Chicago Public Library to investigate a series of mysterious events that have been troubling local authorities for months now.
People who read books about Elliot Gould or really any subject other than the White Sox have been getting beaten with bats pretty badly in the basement of the library. And while no one has died or been permanently injured covering up these incidences has become a thorn in the side of the city. So they’ll welcome you and your lady-partner with open arms, describing the kind of bat used in the incidents and the pattern of bruising, which will be consistent across all cases.
You’ll take careful notes the whole while, occasionally looking in a book about Al Capone to confirm your suspicions. Then, after a lengthy period of pen chewing and jotting things in margins you’ll get up from your desk, grab your partner and head to the library with your home-made ghost busting equipment.
It’ll mostly consist of jury rigged lasers powered by car batteries and a reinforced shoe-box covered in crucifixes, but you’re almost positive that, at least against Catholic ghosts, it should do the trick just fine. You’re also almost positive that the power pack for the laser back-pack won’t explode during use. All it did during testing was badly burn anyone who touched the un-insulated parts of it, after all.
When you arrive at the library you’ll wait patiently for the spook to appear, leaving a copy of The Untouchables VHS tape out on a table in the basement and hiding in a corner where you assume the ghost won’t notice you. After hours of patience and ignoring your partner’s sighs and her lamenting sleeping with her last partner you’ll finally be rewarded when an overweight, syphilitic ghost appears clutching a baseball bat. He’ll stare at the video cassette with rage in his eyes, completely oblivious to the tragedy inherent in the tape’s very existence.
Smiling at his foolishness you’ll step from the shadows with your laser back-pack on and point the emitter right at the ghoul.
“Mister Capone?” you’ll say. The ghost will look at you, baffled.
“Huh?” he’ll say.
“You’re under arrest!” you’ll shout, firing off a laser light show worthy of early Pink Floyd. Capone will be dazed by the lights, mostly because you’ll be shining them right in his face, and he’ll be driven back into the carefully placed shoe-box covered in crucifixes. When he touches the boxes he’ll begin to dissolve, releasing an unearthly moan that will chill you to the very bone and make your teeth hurt a little.
But it will only last a few moments. Then Capone’s form will be gone, his moaning face burned into the shoe box. Your partner will stand up, amazed at what she has witnessed, and when the two of you report back to FBI head-quarters her testimony will insure that you finally get the funding and recognition you deserve.
Things will be looking up for you, as long as you avoid sleeping with your new partner, which is probably going to be surprisingly hard.
Congratulations Fed!
But the fat cats who run the FBI haven’t been listening. Whenever you tell them about the dangers posed by spooks they just laugh it off and assign you to some low-level investigation of a murder that involved crossing state lines or some securities fraud that cost millions of people their jobs. But you’ve been doing so well lately that today they’re going to let you do your thing. You’re going to get a sassy, attractive female partner and you’re going to set out to the heart of the Chicago Public Library to investigate a series of mysterious events that have been troubling local authorities for months now.
People who read books about Elliot Gould or really any subject other than the White Sox have been getting beaten with bats pretty badly in the basement of the library. And while no one has died or been permanently injured covering up these incidences has become a thorn in the side of the city. So they’ll welcome you and your lady-partner with open arms, describing the kind of bat used in the incidents and the pattern of bruising, which will be consistent across all cases.
You’ll take careful notes the whole while, occasionally looking in a book about Al Capone to confirm your suspicions. Then, after a lengthy period of pen chewing and jotting things in margins you’ll get up from your desk, grab your partner and head to the library with your home-made ghost busting equipment.
It’ll mostly consist of jury rigged lasers powered by car batteries and a reinforced shoe-box covered in crucifixes, but you’re almost positive that, at least against Catholic ghosts, it should do the trick just fine. You’re also almost positive that the power pack for the laser back-pack won’t explode during use. All it did during testing was badly burn anyone who touched the un-insulated parts of it, after all.
When you arrive at the library you’ll wait patiently for the spook to appear, leaving a copy of The Untouchables VHS tape out on a table in the basement and hiding in a corner where you assume the ghost won’t notice you. After hours of patience and ignoring your partner’s sighs and her lamenting sleeping with her last partner you’ll finally be rewarded when an overweight, syphilitic ghost appears clutching a baseball bat. He’ll stare at the video cassette with rage in his eyes, completely oblivious to the tragedy inherent in the tape’s very existence.
Smiling at his foolishness you’ll step from the shadows with your laser back-pack on and point the emitter right at the ghoul.
“Mister Capone?” you’ll say. The ghost will look at you, baffled.
“Huh?” he’ll say.
“You’re under arrest!” you’ll shout, firing off a laser light show worthy of early Pink Floyd. Capone will be dazed by the lights, mostly because you’ll be shining them right in his face, and he’ll be driven back into the carefully placed shoe-box covered in crucifixes. When he touches the boxes he’ll begin to dissolve, releasing an unearthly moan that will chill you to the very bone and make your teeth hurt a little.
But it will only last a few moments. Then Capone’s form will be gone, his moaning face burned into the shoe box. Your partner will stand up, amazed at what she has witnessed, and when the two of you report back to FBI head-quarters her testimony will insure that you finally get the funding and recognition you deserve.
Things will be looking up for you, as long as you avoid sleeping with your new partner, which is probably going to be surprisingly hard.
Congratulations Fed!
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