Boone owed me. I delivered his wife’s murderer to him. I did it right, I didn’t cut corners or fuck up. I investigated places carefully and when the time came I drew that bitch out in front of the dinosaur and made sure she got what she deserved. So Boone joined up with me. Our mutual disdain for the Legion made us a perfect pair. So we hunted across the wastes together, stealthing up to Legion patrols, massacring them at a distance and then looting their corpses. We carved a swath through the contested territories and won Nelson back for the NCR. We made the Mojave a little bit safer.
But Boone was maudlin and taciturn. Great in a fight, but a bit much for me to handle all the time, especially since my only other companion is a robot that various tech oriented factions seem keen on using to spy on me. So I told Boone that I’d meet up with him later and recruited a lesbian with a mean fist from the Brotherhood of Steel. I’d always wondered what went on under that armor, and it looks like it’s a whole lot of Felicia Day. So now Fallout: New Vegas is kind of turning into that fan-fic I wrote. But I remain unsure about what the future holds. Not just because I don’t think Felicia Day is going to turn for a man with a measly five charisma, but because I’m not sure of what the future holds for the NCR, the Legion, the Followers and the Brotherhood, even with her no BS insider information. They’re all so unclear in just what they want and in what helping them would mean.
And I love it.
Most games I’ve played recently are bastions of clarity, including the laudable Fallout 3’s expansions. If I choose to launch cruise missiles at Project Purity, the Pentagon, or the Enclave’s Mobile Missile Command Platform I know exactly what that means. Even when things get a little muddy, like in the swamps of Point Lookout things eventually become clear, and I’m never asked to make decisions without complete information. By the time I have to choose a side I usually have pretty solid information on just what each side stands for, what each side really wants and what each side will do with my help. And while that is, at times, quite clear in Fallout: New Vegas, such as with the NCR and the Legion, wherein one group is clearly a benign bureaucratic entity and the other is a group of murdering, raping shitheads, most of the time it isn’t.
For example when I wandered into the Poseidon Power facility, HELIOS, I was met with a choice. Well, several choices. I could help the NCR cement their grip in the area, I could spread the power to disenfranchised areas, or I could share it with everyone with greatly reduced reliability and stability. Oh, or I could use the power to activate a weapon of unbelievable force and deadliness, a weapon that could split the world in twain and would certainly kill everyone in the camp surrounding HELIOS. None of these options, spare the last, made their consequences clear in the lead up to the decision. In fact some of the options weren’t even known to me until I finally managed to reactivate the array. And even after I made the decision to share the power with everyone, I still wasn’t sure it had been the right one. Unreliable shitty power to the entire grid? What are these people even going to be using it for? A lot of these people I was helping were known assholes. But the decision felt right, so I went with it.
But it endeared me to the Followers of the Apocalypse, one of the weirdest groups in Fallout cannon ever. The Followers told me about their semi-secret base and rehab clinic in the middle of Vegas and made clear their desire to make me feel like a part of their big happy family. Then they told me how evil the Brotherhood of Steel was and how I shouldn’t hang out with such a group of un-cool dudes.
But it wasn’t long before I ran into Veronica, who proved just how cool the Brotherhood really was. Especially compared to those sissy Followers. And as I got to know her a little better, and spent more time with my little friend ED-E I started to get dueling messages from the two groups. The Brotherhood wanted to study ED to see just what made him tick and see if they could learn a little more about the power station they’d nearly destroyed their entire order over a few years back. And the Followers wanted ED because the Brotherhood were apparently jerks who didn’t share. So I weighed the options, found out that the Followers would upgrade ED’s weapons and the Brotherhood would upgrade his armor, and decided to try the Followers first. Maybe the Brotherhood would be able to help me out later, but I wanted better weapons now. But I’m not sure I made the right choice there. Or any choice at all, to be honest. It’s so opaque, the decision making in New Vegas, that I’m hard pressed to know just what the consequences of my choices will be. I’m holding back on overthrowing the Brotherhood’s leadership, for example, because I want to see how the current leader’s direction will play out. But I really do have no idea. For all I know I could be denying myself an ally in the long run, but I want to know if he’ll come above ground on his own.
And this is one of my favorite parts of Fallout: New Vegas. The people, the places, the actions, they have a weight and reality to them that games strive towards and always seem to fail at grasping. Games put us in epic scenarios where we hone ourselves on respawning challenges until we’re ready to tackle the scripted plot mission. New Vegas is totally willing to let me piss around as much as I like, but the world is constantly changing as I do so. I’ve all but wiped out Legion presence on the Southeast river bank thanks to Boone’s assistance. i didn’t do it by taking down scripted boss battles (although that is how I restored Nelson to the NCR). Instead I did it by systematically wiping out patrols and then destroying their base of operations. As far as I know nothing has officially changed, but I no longer see Legion scouts in the area, and the NCR seems to spend most of their time fighting local wildlife and their own soldiers turned ghouls in the area now.
For all I know just exploring the world could change it forever. I could render the humble coyote extinct through my relentless hunting efforts. I could become some sort of fearsome figure among the Bighorn for occasionally shooting them in the skull. I’ve already alienated the Powder Gangers just by standing up for myself, even though they were the retards who came after me in the first place. The Jackal gang is all but gone from the area around Goodsprings, just because I spent enough time walking around thereabouts.
And now as I explore ancient areas I am totally unsure of what I will find. In Vault 11 there’s something afoot, something terrible and ancient and evil that the inhabitants gave their own lives to bury. What lies underneath is unknown, partially because I haven’t found it yet but moreso because the plot itself is skillfully doled out. Most games would telegraph that something awful has happened at some point, but not this one. Fallout: New Vegas actually has me in suspense. And it’s mostly because I’m never sure just how far it’s willing to go, what it’s going to show me and how this new knowledge will impact the world. When I found out about Boone’s wife it’s no mistake that I spent a full ten hours scouting and hunting Legion territory with him. And it’s no mistake that Veronica made me want to help the Brotherhood of Steel find their place in the world again.
Fallout: New Vegas is adept at both offering up a world and making you feel a part of it. It makes you care without trying, just by being itself, not by raising the stakes beyond where they need to be. There’s no epic conflict, no grave danger facing the world. The world is shit, and that’s enough. Showing me nice people living in that shit makes me want to help them, even though I’m not some sort of chosen one. And it’s because the world is so lifelike, so chaotic, so rich and full, that I find it difficult to step away from New Vegas even briefly, even to write an essay like this about just how incredible it is. Because forty hours in I’m still enchanted with this new world, I’m still learning new things about what lies beneath the sands of the Mojave and the darkness that inhabits the human heart. And the spontaneous nature of that experience, the manner in which it iterates and responds to me, is what keeps me rooted to this chair, waiting to unpause the game as soon as I finish this sentence.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Congratulations Extra-Dimensional Intelligence!
You’re an extra-dimensional intelligence, formless and endlessly wise in the ways of our universe. But, like most extra-dimensional beings who can penetrate all our meager physical barriers, you spend most of your time watching random people do it.
You’ve seen a lot of configurations. Fat guy on skinny chick, fat guy on fat girl, skinny dude on fat guy. You’ve seen positions and acts most of us know only in rumor, terrible, wordless things that most of us would shudder to even consider, let alone witness. And you’ve done all with the detached amusement of a being completely without attachment or stake in our world.
All that will change this afternoon when you witness a young child loosing a balloon into the atmosphere. You’ll immediately be drawn to the balloon’s firm, supple form, its chaotic ever changing innards. You’ll wonder what its name is, what it likes, if it has ever done it outside of the fourth dimension. You’ll chase it up to the sky, dancing around it as it falls out of the sight of the child who lost it. Then you’ll set upon it.
You’ll ravage it with techniques difficult to comprehend, ideas and purposes and metaphysical devisings that should shame you but won’t they’ll feel so right and strong in you. When you’re finished the balloon and all its lovely gas will be consumed, floating back down to Earth a limp and spent thing. And you, you’ll realize that you’ve seen what this dimension has to show you. You’ll fold in on yourself and without the slightest pop you’ll vanish into nothing.
Congratulations Extra-Dimensional Intelligence!
You’ve seen a lot of configurations. Fat guy on skinny chick, fat guy on fat girl, skinny dude on fat guy. You’ve seen positions and acts most of us know only in rumor, terrible, wordless things that most of us would shudder to even consider, let alone witness. And you’ve done all with the detached amusement of a being completely without attachment or stake in our world.
All that will change this afternoon when you witness a young child loosing a balloon into the atmosphere. You’ll immediately be drawn to the balloon’s firm, supple form, its chaotic ever changing innards. You’ll wonder what its name is, what it likes, if it has ever done it outside of the fourth dimension. You’ll chase it up to the sky, dancing around it as it falls out of the sight of the child who lost it. Then you’ll set upon it.
You’ll ravage it with techniques difficult to comprehend, ideas and purposes and metaphysical devisings that should shame you but won’t they’ll feel so right and strong in you. When you’re finished the balloon and all its lovely gas will be consumed, floating back down to Earth a limp and spent thing. And you, you’ll realize that you’ve seen what this dimension has to show you. You’ll fold in on yourself and without the slightest pop you’ll vanish into nothing.
Congratulations Extra-Dimensional Intelligence!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Congratulations You Pompous Fucks!
Today all of you pompous fucks are going to give each other piggyback rides over how amazing the new Phillip Roth novel is.
“It’s exceptional,” so inane bitch who has made a living writing about other people’s art without ever producing a single significant or original work of her own will say while sipping overpriced red wine from south France, a recipe designed to be consumed within a few months, mass produced by peasants and stockpiled by the wealthy so that it could be sold to people who didn’t know any better at their earliest convenience.
“I find the manner in which it develops character to be beyond belief,” another pretentious asshole will say. This pretentious asshole will be a man who has lived ninety-percent of his life in New York, but writes primarily about works of art in a global context. He’ll regularly spend two to three-hundred percent of market value on clothing that is ostensibly “fair trade,” but is in fact made under crueler than average conditions by corporate magnates who have become incredibly adept at manipulating their own media image.
“I would the character development quite pedantic,” a pretentious asshole with a tiny penis will say.
“I’m not sure I agree,” a pretentious asshole will declare loudly after having one drink too many. This pretentious asshole will be a young woman in her mid thirties who has never actually paid her rent using funds she acquired from working and has never had a satisfying sexual experience.
“I thought it was kind of bad,” someone’s spouse will say. “Like, not really good at all.”
The entire part will turn and stare at them. “You’re certainly entitled to your opinion,” the crowd will say, “however ill-informed it is.”
Then they’ll go back to talking about how awesome Phillip Roth’s prose is while someone’s spouse fights with their mate outside. It will end poorly.
Congratulations Your Pompous Fucks!
“It’s exceptional,” so inane bitch who has made a living writing about other people’s art without ever producing a single significant or original work of her own will say while sipping overpriced red wine from south France, a recipe designed to be consumed within a few months, mass produced by peasants and stockpiled by the wealthy so that it could be sold to people who didn’t know any better at their earliest convenience.
“I find the manner in which it develops character to be beyond belief,” another pretentious asshole will say. This pretentious asshole will be a man who has lived ninety-percent of his life in New York, but writes primarily about works of art in a global context. He’ll regularly spend two to three-hundred percent of market value on clothing that is ostensibly “fair trade,” but is in fact made under crueler than average conditions by corporate magnates who have become incredibly adept at manipulating their own media image.
“I would the character development quite pedantic,” a pretentious asshole with a tiny penis will say.
“I’m not sure I agree,” a pretentious asshole will declare loudly after having one drink too many. This pretentious asshole will be a young woman in her mid thirties who has never actually paid her rent using funds she acquired from working and has never had a satisfying sexual experience.
“I thought it was kind of bad,” someone’s spouse will say. “Like, not really good at all.”
The entire part will turn and stare at them. “You’re certainly entitled to your opinion,” the crowd will say, “however ill-informed it is.”
Then they’ll go back to talking about how awesome Phillip Roth’s prose is while someone’s spouse fights with their mate outside. It will end poorly.
Congratulations Your Pompous Fucks!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Congratulations on Your Impending Oral Surgery!
Today you’re going to show up at your dentist office all bouncy and cheery.
“One for a sweet, sweet dose of nitrous!” you’ll declare to the receptionist, who will stand up and give you a high five. She’ll have a really nice lip piercing, the kind that makes you want to kiss her if only to ask if it hurt when you let you teeth drag over the metal.
“Right this way!” she’ll say, sashaying her hips in such a fashion that makes her impossible not to follow down the hall as you watch the play of her lab coat over her skirt, implying the violent movement that her hips, still concealed beneath that skirt, are capable of.
She’ll bring you to a room and set you down on a chair, making sure you’re comfortable and offering you a lollypop. “All set?” she’ll ask, bending over so you can see her cleavage from an ideal angle. You’ll nod silently and she’ll smile and tromp out, her boots audibly clomping the carpet despite her apparent lightness.
Once she’s left a nurse will walk in. She’ll be an aging woman, also in a lab coat worn over casual clothing. She won’t be wearing makeup, although she will have a somewhat puzzling grin on her face.
“Ready?” she’ll say.
You’ll nod, a little nervous because of her seeming nonchalance despite the fact that your jaw is about to be cracked open and the deepest recesses of your mouth-hole vacated for the amusement of a few doctors and your greedy insurance company.
“Good,” she’ll say, sticking your arm expertly with a needle. Then she’ll drive an IV into just the right spot and hook you up to a bag filled with some of the sweetest legally controlled chemicals this side of the two oceans bordering America oh god now we’re losing consciousness.
Congratulations on Your Impending Oral Surgery!
“One for a sweet, sweet dose of nitrous!” you’ll declare to the receptionist, who will stand up and give you a high five. She’ll have a really nice lip piercing, the kind that makes you want to kiss her if only to ask if it hurt when you let you teeth drag over the metal.
“Right this way!” she’ll say, sashaying her hips in such a fashion that makes her impossible not to follow down the hall as you watch the play of her lab coat over her skirt, implying the violent movement that her hips, still concealed beneath that skirt, are capable of.
She’ll bring you to a room and set you down on a chair, making sure you’re comfortable and offering you a lollypop. “All set?” she’ll ask, bending over so you can see her cleavage from an ideal angle. You’ll nod silently and she’ll smile and tromp out, her boots audibly clomping the carpet despite her apparent lightness.
Once she’s left a nurse will walk in. She’ll be an aging woman, also in a lab coat worn over casual clothing. She won’t be wearing makeup, although she will have a somewhat puzzling grin on her face.
“Ready?” she’ll say.
You’ll nod, a little nervous because of her seeming nonchalance despite the fact that your jaw is about to be cracked open and the deepest recesses of your mouth-hole vacated for the amusement of a few doctors and your greedy insurance company.
“Good,” she’ll say, sticking your arm expertly with a needle. Then she’ll drive an IV into just the right spot and hook you up to a bag filled with some of the sweetest legally controlled chemicals this side of the two oceans bordering America oh god now we’re losing consciousness.
Congratulations on Your Impending Oral Surgery!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Congratulations on Going Bowling with a Porn Star!
There are a few things you’re going to have to do to get this whole thing together.
First, go to Riley Mason’s website. We’re not sure where it is, but it’s a small internet and we’re sure that if you Google her you’ll find ample pictures of her being ploughed. Ample enough to keep you interested until you find her booking website.
Second, you’re going to have to find a way to transport Riley Mason to wherever it is you are in the world. This could be a matter of calling a town car service and having her and her bodyguard come to your apartment so the three of you can get in your Chevy Tahoe and hit the road. Or it could be as troublesome as you passing a background check, flying her to your city, hiring a trusted member of a security agency located in that city and having the security guard drive the three of you to a nearby bowling alley in his car, because yours might have gas or some shit in it.
You’re also going to have to pay her up front fee, which is a couple hundred per hour, travel time not included.
But after all these steps have been taken you’ll show up at a bowling alley with Riley Mason, who will actually be dressed in a fashion which is totally normal (because that’s how alt-porn girls do). She’ll have an amused, somewhat puzzled look on her face as she walks around the alley with her bodyguard in tow, drinking PBR and ignoring the stares as best she can.
You’ll ask her her shoe size as you pick up your rentals and she’ll laugh when she answers. She’ll tell you when you show up with a pair of sixes that usually men just ask her that so they can buy her skanky shoes that she can wear while they fuck her. She kind of likes the change. You’ll smile and tell her that you probably couldn’t afford to fuck her which, if you had to do the whole plane thing is probably true, and she’ll laugh and punch you in the arm.
The game will go by easily with you, and for a few seconds you’ll believe that you’re on a date with a girl, not paying to spend time with someone who has sex with more people than you can probably imagine. It’ll be a surreal experience for the two of you, each of you pretending that you’re normal for very different reasons, and when you ask her if she wants to bowl a second frame she’ll shrug and say “Sure” without even thinking of her billable hours.
When the bowling leads to a few more beers and the beers lead to more beers the two of you will talk like it’s the first time you’ve ever really met, like one of you hasn’t been paid to fuck in front of crowds the world over and the other one has had a significant relationship since the era of being able to carry liquids through airline security. You’ll pay for all of her drinks lavishly, which won’t be that bad because her taste will actually be quite cheap, and at the end of the night you’ll be too toasted to drive. The body guard will have to give the two of you a ride back to your apartment.
At the door Ms. Mason (which is not her real name, of course, but it is poor taste to besmirch such a lady by printing such information without her permission) will hold your hand as she walks you up to the door. She’ll tell you that she had a lot of fun and that it was totally worth it to visit you. She won’t mention money once. She’ll just captivate you with her beauty, and you’ll make her feel like a person again instead of an object with your genuine attempt to woo her. When you reach your door and struggle with your keys she’ll give you a quick, chaste kiss on the cheek and then depart back to her security guard, who will be waiting in either your or his car.
The two of them will drive away, leaving you smiling like an idiot on your porch. You won’t even realize that that was your car, assuming that was your car, until the next day when you need it and can’t find it. Even then you’ll have a little glimmer of hope when you see a text from an unknown number asking if you want to get brunch or something. Assuming, of course, you lived close enough to just hang out with her and that you didn’t have to fly her in. In the latter case a bodyguard will show up and ask you for your email in exchange for your keys, leading to one of the strangest long distance relationships in your life.
Congratulations on Going Bowling with a Porn Star!
First, go to Riley Mason’s website. We’re not sure where it is, but it’s a small internet and we’re sure that if you Google her you’ll find ample pictures of her being ploughed. Ample enough to keep you interested until you find her booking website.
Second, you’re going to have to find a way to transport Riley Mason to wherever it is you are in the world. This could be a matter of calling a town car service and having her and her bodyguard come to your apartment so the three of you can get in your Chevy Tahoe and hit the road. Or it could be as troublesome as you passing a background check, flying her to your city, hiring a trusted member of a security agency located in that city and having the security guard drive the three of you to a nearby bowling alley in his car, because yours might have gas or some shit in it.
You’re also going to have to pay her up front fee, which is a couple hundred per hour, travel time not included.
But after all these steps have been taken you’ll show up at a bowling alley with Riley Mason, who will actually be dressed in a fashion which is totally normal (because that’s how alt-porn girls do). She’ll have an amused, somewhat puzzled look on her face as she walks around the alley with her bodyguard in tow, drinking PBR and ignoring the stares as best she can.
You’ll ask her her shoe size as you pick up your rentals and she’ll laugh when she answers. She’ll tell you when you show up with a pair of sixes that usually men just ask her that so they can buy her skanky shoes that she can wear while they fuck her. She kind of likes the change. You’ll smile and tell her that you probably couldn’t afford to fuck her which, if you had to do the whole plane thing is probably true, and she’ll laugh and punch you in the arm.
The game will go by easily with you, and for a few seconds you’ll believe that you’re on a date with a girl, not paying to spend time with someone who has sex with more people than you can probably imagine. It’ll be a surreal experience for the two of you, each of you pretending that you’re normal for very different reasons, and when you ask her if she wants to bowl a second frame she’ll shrug and say “Sure” without even thinking of her billable hours.
When the bowling leads to a few more beers and the beers lead to more beers the two of you will talk like it’s the first time you’ve ever really met, like one of you hasn’t been paid to fuck in front of crowds the world over and the other one has had a significant relationship since the era of being able to carry liquids through airline security. You’ll pay for all of her drinks lavishly, which won’t be that bad because her taste will actually be quite cheap, and at the end of the night you’ll be too toasted to drive. The body guard will have to give the two of you a ride back to your apartment.
At the door Ms. Mason (which is not her real name, of course, but it is poor taste to besmirch such a lady by printing such information without her permission) will hold your hand as she walks you up to the door. She’ll tell you that she had a lot of fun and that it was totally worth it to visit you. She won’t mention money once. She’ll just captivate you with her beauty, and you’ll make her feel like a person again instead of an object with your genuine attempt to woo her. When you reach your door and struggle with your keys she’ll give you a quick, chaste kiss on the cheek and then depart back to her security guard, who will be waiting in either your or his car.
The two of them will drive away, leaving you smiling like an idiot on your porch. You won’t even realize that that was your car, assuming that was your car, until the next day when you need it and can’t find it. Even then you’ll have a little glimmer of hope when you see a text from an unknown number asking if you want to get brunch or something. Assuming, of course, you lived close enough to just hang out with her and that you didn’t have to fly her in. In the latter case a bodyguard will show up and ask you for your email in exchange for your keys, leading to one of the strangest long distance relationships in your life.
Congratulations on Going Bowling with a Porn Star!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Congratulations Ski Doo Dude!
Today you’re that guy on the internet who does tricks on his Ski-Doo. Normally you do them pretty well, so no one really gives a shit about you. No one except 14 year olds and people with problems coming too soon, the primary cross-section of humanity that subscribes to your Youtube channel.
But this Wednesday you’re going to try the toughest trick you’ve ever tried. You’re going to try ramping your Ski-Doo over a series of ski-shacks. Some of them will be on fire, not because of careful planning but because of careless drinking. You’re going to rev your Ski-Doo right up though, regardless of those looming flames. You’re going to point the nose down and put the pedal to the floor.
The snow will race beneath you, the air rush past your face. Your cheeks will burn with pressure and cold, your eyes will water with fear. As the end of the ramp approaches you’ll have a thought as to whether or not this was a good idea, but it’ll be a tiny thing, reverberating far below the drone of engine and the fire of the cylinders pumping.
When you take off from the ramp you’ll feel light beyond your wildest beliefs, a weightless thing, a bird. You’ll soar over trees and clear the first, non-flaming cottage. Then the second.
Heartbeats will pass between each one. The seconds will stretch into minutes in your mind, desperate things clinging to your mind, knowing what comes next. As the first flaming cottage passes beneath you you’ll think, for one of those heartbeats, that you could make it over the next one.
But the angle of approach will drop sharply. Physics will not favor your Ski-Doo today, and you’ll begin to arc down out of the sky towards the cabin, into the flames. You’ll enter at their zenith, catching fire and rolling across the second peak before you slam face first into the third burning building. The Ski-Doo will drop below the second roof, having crashed its weight into the building it collided into. You’ll sit there in shock in the flames, feeling them roil over you, feeling your clothes catch fire as you try to move but cannot make your nerves respond.
You’ll be dragged in under thirty seconds by nearby Ski-Safe-Tee personnel, who will put you out with fire blankets and snow. Then those personnel will escort you inside amidst cheers at the spectacle of your failure. You’ll be placed next to a fire, roaring and safely contained, where you’ll slowly regain your body heat and shiver occasionally at the thought of your possible death while pulling off a stunt for a Youtube audience.
You’ll think of how all your cred has been undone by your failure, how bad shit is. You’ll think this for a full hour and a half, until one of your friends brings in a laptop showing the view-count on your upload. You’ll see that it has already topped one-hundred thousand views. In one hour. At that moment you’ll realize that you and your Ski-Doo can make a lot more getting injured than you can pulling off stunts competently.
Thus will begin your brief, incredibly lucrative career.
Congratulations Ski-Doo Dude!
But this Wednesday you’re going to try the toughest trick you’ve ever tried. You’re going to try ramping your Ski-Doo over a series of ski-shacks. Some of them will be on fire, not because of careful planning but because of careless drinking. You’re going to rev your Ski-Doo right up though, regardless of those looming flames. You’re going to point the nose down and put the pedal to the floor.
The snow will race beneath you, the air rush past your face. Your cheeks will burn with pressure and cold, your eyes will water with fear. As the end of the ramp approaches you’ll have a thought as to whether or not this was a good idea, but it’ll be a tiny thing, reverberating far below the drone of engine and the fire of the cylinders pumping.
When you take off from the ramp you’ll feel light beyond your wildest beliefs, a weightless thing, a bird. You’ll soar over trees and clear the first, non-flaming cottage. Then the second.
Heartbeats will pass between each one. The seconds will stretch into minutes in your mind, desperate things clinging to your mind, knowing what comes next. As the first flaming cottage passes beneath you you’ll think, for one of those heartbeats, that you could make it over the next one.
But the angle of approach will drop sharply. Physics will not favor your Ski-Doo today, and you’ll begin to arc down out of the sky towards the cabin, into the flames. You’ll enter at their zenith, catching fire and rolling across the second peak before you slam face first into the third burning building. The Ski-Doo will drop below the second roof, having crashed its weight into the building it collided into. You’ll sit there in shock in the flames, feeling them roil over you, feeling your clothes catch fire as you try to move but cannot make your nerves respond.
You’ll be dragged in under thirty seconds by nearby Ski-Safe-Tee personnel, who will put you out with fire blankets and snow. Then those personnel will escort you inside amidst cheers at the spectacle of your failure. You’ll be placed next to a fire, roaring and safely contained, where you’ll slowly regain your body heat and shiver occasionally at the thought of your possible death while pulling off a stunt for a Youtube audience.
You’ll think of how all your cred has been undone by your failure, how bad shit is. You’ll think this for a full hour and a half, until one of your friends brings in a laptop showing the view-count on your upload. You’ll see that it has already topped one-hundred thousand views. In one hour. At that moment you’ll realize that you and your Ski-Doo can make a lot more getting injured than you can pulling off stunts competently.
Thus will begin your brief, incredibly lucrative career.
Congratulations Ski-Doo Dude!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Congratulations Brain Parasite!
Today, in a hilariously ironic twist of fate, you’re going to crawl up the spine of Stephen Hawking and attach yourself to the motherlode of all fucking brains. You’re going to fasten yourself hard and fasten yourself fast and stick there and suck, suck, suck. You’ll suck so hard, in fact, that you’ll suck the neuro-muscular dystrophy right out of his body and have him up out of that wheelchair and dancing within a matter of hours.
Stephen will write a series of papers about how physics define just how great you are and quantify in a manner that makes it potentially infinite without necessarily being infinite in the even that a means by which to measure your awesomeness is devised. He’ll make you the toast of the town, with your name being sung and celebrated from every corner of the globe. You’ll have undone one of the greatest injustices that nature has ever visited upon the world, and you’ll have gotten fat doing it.
We just hope that tomorrow, when you send a copy of Time Magazine with your picture of it as “Parasite of the Year” along with a handwritten note from Stephen Hawking which reads, simply, fuck you old man, you’ll be gracious when your dad calls you and tries to make up with you. There’s no way of knowing if he genuinely feels bad or if he’s just trying to cash in on your fame, but you should let him in anyways. It’s not like he has a lot going for him right now anyhow.
Congratulations Brain Parasite!
Stephen will write a series of papers about how physics define just how great you are and quantify in a manner that makes it potentially infinite without necessarily being infinite in the even that a means by which to measure your awesomeness is devised. He’ll make you the toast of the town, with your name being sung and celebrated from every corner of the globe. You’ll have undone one of the greatest injustices that nature has ever visited upon the world, and you’ll have gotten fat doing it.
We just hope that tomorrow, when you send a copy of Time Magazine with your picture of it as “Parasite of the Year” along with a handwritten note from Stephen Hawking which reads, simply, fuck you old man, you’ll be gracious when your dad calls you and tries to make up with you. There’s no way of knowing if he genuinely feels bad or if he’s just trying to cash in on your fame, but you should let him in anyways. It’s not like he has a lot going for him right now anyhow.
Congratulations Brain Parasite!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Fallout: New Vegas: A Love Story!
This is a tough review for me to write. Not necessarily because I have mixed feelings about Fallout: New Vegas. Not even because I feel I have to dance around spoilers in a game so riddled with unique little set pieces that you’d really have to put a huge effort into re-creating the exact experience of running off those bird-dogging bandits or robbing that bank or assassinating that troublesome deputy. It has nothing to do with me having reservations about recommending what is, by far, my favorite game of this year to any and all people who like video games for any reason. It’s because I don’t want to stop playing it. Even for the time it takes me to write this. So here we go.
Technical problems aside, Fallout: New Vegas is an excellent game through and through. It is, in every way, an improvement on Fallout 3. The environment is more lively and varied, despite being a massive desert. The technology is more like technology, the scraps and odds and ends more useful in unexpected ways. All of the systems of the game play together in ways that are both completely reasonable and unexpected and the added elements of transparency governing things like crafting, combat and companions all make for a much more polished, rounded experience. Obsidian has had a lot of time to add features to this game and they’ve done more with it than I ever expected. The addition of iron sights aiming alone almost made me cream my jeans, and while the alternate ammo forms can occasionally be overwhelming it’s nice to be able to fit your favorite firearm to multiple situations, rather than carrying around four different guns to deal with the many targets of the wasteland appropriately.
The world also feels more densely populated. Not with people, but with groups, places of interest, and airwaves. Double the radio stations, actual faction tracking that tells you your standing with different groups and little flyspeck towns filled with bite sized characters who have problems for you to solve aplenty while you’re passing through. The various subgroups of the world also feel more nuanced and defined than they did in Fallout 3. Instead of a band of “raiders against the world” and a bogeyman-like Enclave backing up an appropriately complex Brotherhood of Steel, New Vegas introduces a number of complicated factions, big and small, good and evil, right and wrong, all of whom seem like real groups trying to make their way in the wasteland. And while Liam Neeson isn’t there to lend his celebrity and make us feel nice and grounded in this brave new world Michael Hogan’s less immediately recognizable pipes get the job done just as well. Perhaps better, since we’re not constantly waiting for the celebrity voice over to tell us which characters are important and which ones we can cast off.
But these characters, and the depth they provide, is secondary to the new role Obsidian has given the environment. In Fallout 3 the environment was mostly benign and, occasionally, a threat. In New Vegas, however, with its thriving plant life and new, incredibly engrossing Hardcore mode, which makes it necessary to forage so that you can find things like food and water to keep yourself strong, the environment can be a resource, often a crucial one, in getting through the game’s various hurdles. Ignoring the environment in New Vegas means giving up on the entire crafting system, sacrificing a huge number of items that provide radiation-free healing and, more often than not, running headlong into an unexpected threat. Fallout 3 was obsessed with the world as a dying place, a place which begged for you to breathe life back into it. The game centered around the theme. New Vegas is a world which has returned to the cycle of life and death that has always guided it, a world gripped by change which occurs constantly, without the impetus of the main character. Fallout 3 was about changing the world: New Vegas is about living in it.
And, unsurprisingly, the writing is focused towards this end. It’s rare to hear an out of place, overly demonstrative speech and far more common to hear characters downplaying their surroundings. New Vegas is completely aware of how deadly the world in which its characters live is, and how surviving in this world involves dealing with constant threats that eventually just become routine. It’s rare that I feel that I’m involved in grand events as I move from place to place in New Vegas, and far more often that I feel like I’m intruding on existing problems. It’s a flavor more familiar to players of the original Fallout games, the feeling that while the world may be big and filled with serious problems not all of these problems are yours. And while you can try to solve them the only way to really solve anything is to make sure that the people in any given place won’t need you once you’ve moved on.
And it is all rendered in the same loving, spot on prose that Obsidian has always offered up to gamers valiant enough to engage their ambitious products. Which brings me to the other hallmark of Obsidian’s games, and what is undeniably the single biggest problem with Fallout: New Vegas: the bugs.
I haven’t had it too bad yet. I have graphic flashes that make it look like a lightning storm is coming up in the desert, occasionally the AI wigs out and runs in circles or does...I’m not exactly sure what during combat. I’ve had crashes, crashes and more crashes, and I swear to go whoever designed the crafting interface should be shot. I’m not sure if they meant for it to be necessary to click an object, then press A, then press A again to craft it, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t want my interface to periodically lock up without warning and make the sound of scrolling text until I quit. And during large fights I sometimes have slowdown issues so severe that I can’t actually aim, although this could be entirely my fault for running the game under the same standards as Fallout 3. Regardless, none of these things are too bad – they’re part of playing the game. The alt-tab issue that made Fallout 3 the only thing my computer could do is no longer a problem in New Vegas, so that’s nice.
But other players have reported severe problems. Tom Chick has dedicated all of his Fallout: New Vegas game diaries to the technical shortcomings of the game on the 360, which are many. So many, in fact, that I cannot recommend purchasing the game on that platform, although I’m sure they’ve sold more than their fair share of copies on it. But even on the PC I’ve had bug reports creep in left and right from friends and the internet alike. One friend of mine, who splits his playing time between his home-PC and a laptop he carts around to his job and his girlfriend’s house, has had serious, serious problems with New Vegas’s relationship with Steam Cloud features like shared save games. This would be totally reasonable if the game didn’t force players to install Steam so that they could make use of such features during play. As a result he’s lost hours and hours of time and effort both trying to get a game feature to work as intended and in replaying parts of the game he thought he was finished with. Not cool, Bethesda/Obsidian.
Still, the potential of Fallout: New Vegas, the polish and the degree to which everything works when it does work, which is certainly not all the time, make it a must buy for any fan of Fallout. It is, in many ways, perfectly old school and, in many other ways, the most revolutionary RPG of this day and age. And while there are technical issues to spare the game itself is so pitch perfect, so lovingly crafted and so immersive, with its elaborate, completely transparent crafting system, its newly revamped targeting system and its brand new world filled with intrigue and conflict that most games fail so completely at rendering appropriately. Fallout: New Vegas is not a perfect game, not by any means. But it is an excellent game, and possibly one of the best games I have ever played. And whether or not it has problems it attempts enough revolutionary things that it deserves credit or, at the very least, attention.
Technical problems aside, Fallout: New Vegas is an excellent game through and through. It is, in every way, an improvement on Fallout 3. The environment is more lively and varied, despite being a massive desert. The technology is more like technology, the scraps and odds and ends more useful in unexpected ways. All of the systems of the game play together in ways that are both completely reasonable and unexpected and the added elements of transparency governing things like crafting, combat and companions all make for a much more polished, rounded experience. Obsidian has had a lot of time to add features to this game and they’ve done more with it than I ever expected. The addition of iron sights aiming alone almost made me cream my jeans, and while the alternate ammo forms can occasionally be overwhelming it’s nice to be able to fit your favorite firearm to multiple situations, rather than carrying around four different guns to deal with the many targets of the wasteland appropriately.
The world also feels more densely populated. Not with people, but with groups, places of interest, and airwaves. Double the radio stations, actual faction tracking that tells you your standing with different groups and little flyspeck towns filled with bite sized characters who have problems for you to solve aplenty while you’re passing through. The various subgroups of the world also feel more nuanced and defined than they did in Fallout 3. Instead of a band of “raiders against the world” and a bogeyman-like Enclave backing up an appropriately complex Brotherhood of Steel, New Vegas introduces a number of complicated factions, big and small, good and evil, right and wrong, all of whom seem like real groups trying to make their way in the wasteland. And while Liam Neeson isn’t there to lend his celebrity and make us feel nice and grounded in this brave new world Michael Hogan’s less immediately recognizable pipes get the job done just as well. Perhaps better, since we’re not constantly waiting for the celebrity voice over to tell us which characters are important and which ones we can cast off.
But these characters, and the depth they provide, is secondary to the new role Obsidian has given the environment. In Fallout 3 the environment was mostly benign and, occasionally, a threat. In New Vegas, however, with its thriving plant life and new, incredibly engrossing Hardcore mode, which makes it necessary to forage so that you can find things like food and water to keep yourself strong, the environment can be a resource, often a crucial one, in getting through the game’s various hurdles. Ignoring the environment in New Vegas means giving up on the entire crafting system, sacrificing a huge number of items that provide radiation-free healing and, more often than not, running headlong into an unexpected threat. Fallout 3 was obsessed with the world as a dying place, a place which begged for you to breathe life back into it. The game centered around the theme. New Vegas is a world which has returned to the cycle of life and death that has always guided it, a world gripped by change which occurs constantly, without the impetus of the main character. Fallout 3 was about changing the world: New Vegas is about living in it.
And, unsurprisingly, the writing is focused towards this end. It’s rare to hear an out of place, overly demonstrative speech and far more common to hear characters downplaying their surroundings. New Vegas is completely aware of how deadly the world in which its characters live is, and how surviving in this world involves dealing with constant threats that eventually just become routine. It’s rare that I feel that I’m involved in grand events as I move from place to place in New Vegas, and far more often that I feel like I’m intruding on existing problems. It’s a flavor more familiar to players of the original Fallout games, the feeling that while the world may be big and filled with serious problems not all of these problems are yours. And while you can try to solve them the only way to really solve anything is to make sure that the people in any given place won’t need you once you’ve moved on.
And it is all rendered in the same loving, spot on prose that Obsidian has always offered up to gamers valiant enough to engage their ambitious products. Which brings me to the other hallmark of Obsidian’s games, and what is undeniably the single biggest problem with Fallout: New Vegas: the bugs.
I haven’t had it too bad yet. I have graphic flashes that make it look like a lightning storm is coming up in the desert, occasionally the AI wigs out and runs in circles or does...I’m not exactly sure what during combat. I’ve had crashes, crashes and more crashes, and I swear to go whoever designed the crafting interface should be shot. I’m not sure if they meant for it to be necessary to click an object, then press A, then press A again to craft it, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t want my interface to periodically lock up without warning and make the sound of scrolling text until I quit. And during large fights I sometimes have slowdown issues so severe that I can’t actually aim, although this could be entirely my fault for running the game under the same standards as Fallout 3. Regardless, none of these things are too bad – they’re part of playing the game. The alt-tab issue that made Fallout 3 the only thing my computer could do is no longer a problem in New Vegas, so that’s nice.
But other players have reported severe problems. Tom Chick has dedicated all of his Fallout: New Vegas game diaries to the technical shortcomings of the game on the 360, which are many. So many, in fact, that I cannot recommend purchasing the game on that platform, although I’m sure they’ve sold more than their fair share of copies on it. But even on the PC I’ve had bug reports creep in left and right from friends and the internet alike. One friend of mine, who splits his playing time between his home-PC and a laptop he carts around to his job and his girlfriend’s house, has had serious, serious problems with New Vegas’s relationship with Steam Cloud features like shared save games. This would be totally reasonable if the game didn’t force players to install Steam so that they could make use of such features during play. As a result he’s lost hours and hours of time and effort both trying to get a game feature to work as intended and in replaying parts of the game he thought he was finished with. Not cool, Bethesda/Obsidian.
Still, the potential of Fallout: New Vegas, the polish and the degree to which everything works when it does work, which is certainly not all the time, make it a must buy for any fan of Fallout. It is, in many ways, perfectly old school and, in many other ways, the most revolutionary RPG of this day and age. And while there are technical issues to spare the game itself is so pitch perfect, so lovingly crafted and so immersive, with its elaborate, completely transparent crafting system, its newly revamped targeting system and its brand new world filled with intrigue and conflict that most games fail so completely at rendering appropriately. Fallout: New Vegas is not a perfect game, not by any means. But it is an excellent game, and possibly one of the best games I have ever played. And whether or not it has problems it attempts enough revolutionary things that it deserves credit or, at the very least, attention.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Congratulations on Winning the Bass Fishing Contest!
Today you’re going to win a bass fishing contest. Nothing interesting here. We actually sort of wanted a day off, so we were hoping that you’d just see the title and ignore this posting. In the event that you kept looking, though, we feel you need some sort of reward. So, if you’re still here, here’s a picture of Gillian Anderson.
We apologize for congratulations on winning the bass fishing contest. Seriously. We’re really sorry.
We apologize for congratulations on winning the bass fishing contest. Seriously. We’re really sorry.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Congratulations on Your First Dance Kill!
When you first meet Ezerelda you won’t really know what to make of her. She’ll seem very sad, very graceful, very alone, but she’ll also seem like she grasps beauty in a way that few people really can. It’ll seem like she’s made beauty something she can carry with her, something that is meant to be shared but never held, never captured in a moment. She’ll be the most exacting teacher you’ll ever have had, but with good reason. So much depends on you on this mission, on your training being perfect.
That’s why it will be volunteer only. There will be no room for doubt, no room for error. Only one who believes entirely, as Ezerelda will frequently tell you, could accomplish this seemingly impossible task and, more importantly to her, survive.
“It might seem I don’t like you,” she’ll have said at your first meeting. “That I want nothing more than to see you fail.” She’ll have taken all of you in with her lingering glance. “This is far from the case. Everything I teach you, every exacting lesson, is to insure that you may kill and leave without enduring harm. More than anything else I want to see you live and leave. I want to see you succeed and thrive more than anything else in the world. I am cruel only towards this purpose.”
And cruel she was. The hours of pirouetting, of gracefully bending and then using your dance-shoe-blades to decapitate marionettes in Korean uniforms, all of them winnowed away at your classmates until only a handful of you remained, a handful trained towards the most brutal purpose imaginable: dance fighting. But you and your companions now stand, the finest weapons that the United States government can muster that aren’t flying robots that fire missiles at small human targets, killing them with massive collateral damage.
So tonight, when you perform in front of a massive crowd of North Korean dignitaries you will do so without fear. And when you’re invited back to perform for Professor Park Kim Sun, also known as Doctor Roboto, you’ll remain calm and self-assured right up until the perfect moment when you strike out with your fearsome dance skills and murder him and his entire entourage in a rain of blood and body parts. Then you’ll elegantly groove your way into a vent shaft and dance-climb all the way to the Special Forces extraction team waiting for you on the roof-top.
As their helicopter speeds you away you’ll smile, gazing out at the invisible city-space below. You’ll think of all the hours you spent with Ezerelda, the sore muscles and bruised bones, and you’ll thank her for every last one. Without her efforts you wouldn’t be on this helicopter, riding home to see your dad while he undergoes treatment for his bone-cancer on the government’s dime.
Congratulations on Your First Dance Kill!
That’s why it will be volunteer only. There will be no room for doubt, no room for error. Only one who believes entirely, as Ezerelda will frequently tell you, could accomplish this seemingly impossible task and, more importantly to her, survive.
“It might seem I don’t like you,” she’ll have said at your first meeting. “That I want nothing more than to see you fail.” She’ll have taken all of you in with her lingering glance. “This is far from the case. Everything I teach you, every exacting lesson, is to insure that you may kill and leave without enduring harm. More than anything else I want to see you live and leave. I want to see you succeed and thrive more than anything else in the world. I am cruel only towards this purpose.”
And cruel she was. The hours of pirouetting, of gracefully bending and then using your dance-shoe-blades to decapitate marionettes in Korean uniforms, all of them winnowed away at your classmates until only a handful of you remained, a handful trained towards the most brutal purpose imaginable: dance fighting. But you and your companions now stand, the finest weapons that the United States government can muster that aren’t flying robots that fire missiles at small human targets, killing them with massive collateral damage.
So tonight, when you perform in front of a massive crowd of North Korean dignitaries you will do so without fear. And when you’re invited back to perform for Professor Park Kim Sun, also known as Doctor Roboto, you’ll remain calm and self-assured right up until the perfect moment when you strike out with your fearsome dance skills and murder him and his entire entourage in a rain of blood and body parts. Then you’ll elegantly groove your way into a vent shaft and dance-climb all the way to the Special Forces extraction team waiting for you on the roof-top.
As their helicopter speeds you away you’ll smile, gazing out at the invisible city-space below. You’ll think of all the hours you spent with Ezerelda, the sore muscles and bruised bones, and you’ll thank her for every last one. Without her efforts you wouldn’t be on this helicopter, riding home to see your dad while he undergoes treatment for his bone-cancer on the government’s dime.
Congratulations on Your First Dance Kill!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Congratulations Dance Instructor!
The man in the suit will have been watching you the entire class. At first you’ll think that he was some sort of pervert, someone who saw you dance years ago and just wanted to fuck you so bad he couldn’t give up for years and years. But as time goes on, as you watch how calm and collected he is, the way he assesses each of your movements like you’re a beast of burden, you’ll realize that his purpose is far darker.
But luckily he’ll just stand there and watch you while you teach. He’ll watch as your girls file out and then he’ll step up to you respectfully, set a manila envelope on your desk and take off his sunglasses.
“You already know why I’m here,” he’ll say.
“You already know my answer,” will be your response.
He’ll frown. “We don’t have any other options.”
“That’s not my concern.”
“This won’t be like Beirut.”
“Tell that to my kneecap. It still aches when it’s cold, you know.”
He’ll bite his lip.
“Read the file,” he’ll say, tapping the envelope. Sighing, you’ll pick it up and start.
Inside you’ll find out that Kim Jong-Il is actually a lot more competent than people give him credit for. Turns out he has not only acquired nuclear weapons but that he is also building an army of robotic supersoldiers to overrun America. Judging by the technological specifications in the report these soldiers would be nearly impossible to combat, even for sexy dance-assassins like yourself.
But you’ll see that the robotic supersoldiers are being designed by a single scientist, since North Korea doesn’t have that many smart people in it due to violent purges. If you eliminate this scientist the entire project will disintegrate. And this scientist is a big of children’s dance recitals.
“Tell me your plan,” you’ll say, dropping the contents of the envelope back on your desk.
The man in a suit will detail his plan. It’ll center around a group of Korean-American children who will put on a multi-cultural dance show for the scientist and a number of Korean dignitaries. Several of these children will be trained, by you, in dance-assassination. They will steal into his chambers, at great personal risk, and undo what he has done. They’ll risk their lives to save the world, but without you there’s no chance they’ll ever be able to dance out of the secret facility where he resides alive.
Biting your lip, you’ll look the man in the suit right in his dark, handsome eyes.
“Let me send out an email. I’ll need someone to cover my classes.”
He’ll nod and wait, patiently, as you go through your Outlook contacts, assembling a mailing list and coming up with a story about sick dogs or some shit that’ll keep you from working for a while. As tired as you’ll already feel you’ll be a little excited to be doing the work again. There will be some pride there, in teaching girls how to kill and do it right. It always was your forte.
Congratulations Dance Instructor!
But luckily he’ll just stand there and watch you while you teach. He’ll watch as your girls file out and then he’ll step up to you respectfully, set a manila envelope on your desk and take off his sunglasses.
“You already know why I’m here,” he’ll say.
“You already know my answer,” will be your response.
He’ll frown. “We don’t have any other options.”
“That’s not my concern.”
“This won’t be like Beirut.”
“Tell that to my kneecap. It still aches when it’s cold, you know.”
He’ll bite his lip.
“Read the file,” he’ll say, tapping the envelope. Sighing, you’ll pick it up and start.
Inside you’ll find out that Kim Jong-Il is actually a lot more competent than people give him credit for. Turns out he has not only acquired nuclear weapons but that he is also building an army of robotic supersoldiers to overrun America. Judging by the technological specifications in the report these soldiers would be nearly impossible to combat, even for sexy dance-assassins like yourself.
But you’ll see that the robotic supersoldiers are being designed by a single scientist, since North Korea doesn’t have that many smart people in it due to violent purges. If you eliminate this scientist the entire project will disintegrate. And this scientist is a big of children’s dance recitals.
“Tell me your plan,” you’ll say, dropping the contents of the envelope back on your desk.
The man in a suit will detail his plan. It’ll center around a group of Korean-American children who will put on a multi-cultural dance show for the scientist and a number of Korean dignitaries. Several of these children will be trained, by you, in dance-assassination. They will steal into his chambers, at great personal risk, and undo what he has done. They’ll risk their lives to save the world, but without you there’s no chance they’ll ever be able to dance out of the secret facility where he resides alive.
Biting your lip, you’ll look the man in the suit right in his dark, handsome eyes.
“Let me send out an email. I’ll need someone to cover my classes.”
He’ll nod and wait, patiently, as you go through your Outlook contacts, assembling a mailing list and coming up with a story about sick dogs or some shit that’ll keep you from working for a while. As tired as you’ll already feel you’ll be a little excited to be doing the work again. There will be some pride there, in teaching girls how to kill and do it right. It always was your forte.
Congratulations Dance Instructor!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Congratulations Cooper!
People scoffed when you first opened your store.
“Is there really a big market for someone who just makes barrels nowadays?” they’ll ask politely, as you work a single stave to get the curve just right.
“FUCK YOU!” you’ll shout back at them, branding an axehandle threateningly.
“It just seems like factories deal with this sort of thing more appropriately. And have the ability to deal with the necessary volume better, you know?” they’ll say, walking backwards slowly towards the door.
“I DON’T NEED THIS!” you’ll scream, hurling a container of pitch at them and letting out a wordless shout that drives them out of the door.
Then you’ll turn back to your work, crafting barrels piece by piece. After two days of solid work you’ll have completed the barrel you were working on at the start of this story. It will be a good barrel, good enough for dried goods, not quite well sealed enough for liquids. You’ll smile at your handiwork before taking in just how big and empty your store is. Was the abstract they at the beginning of this story right? Is it possible that you’ve alienated your customer base by making a business so remarkably anachronistic that it really hasn’t existed in first world nations in nearly a century?
As you ponder these deep, business shattering thoughts a portly man in a suit will burst in. He’ll be an eccentric billionaire who wishes the world was more like it used to be, when people could own slaves, and he’ll immediately be taken with your operation.
“How much for that barrel?” he’ll say.
“A farthing!” you’ll shout, slightly less angrily than before but still sort of generally angry.
“I’ll take it!” he’ll shout back, excited at the idea of being angry for no good reason.
“Okay!” you’ll shout back at him, as he writes you a check for two million dollars with “A Farthing” written in the notes field. Thus will begin your only actual relationship with a client, and the only true friendship you will ever know in life.
Congratulations Cooper!
“Is there really a big market for someone who just makes barrels nowadays?” they’ll ask politely, as you work a single stave to get the curve just right.
“FUCK YOU!” you’ll shout back at them, branding an axehandle threateningly.
“It just seems like factories deal with this sort of thing more appropriately. And have the ability to deal with the necessary volume better, you know?” they’ll say, walking backwards slowly towards the door.
“I DON’T NEED THIS!” you’ll scream, hurling a container of pitch at them and letting out a wordless shout that drives them out of the door.
Then you’ll turn back to your work, crafting barrels piece by piece. After two days of solid work you’ll have completed the barrel you were working on at the start of this story. It will be a good barrel, good enough for dried goods, not quite well sealed enough for liquids. You’ll smile at your handiwork before taking in just how big and empty your store is. Was the abstract they at the beginning of this story right? Is it possible that you’ve alienated your customer base by making a business so remarkably anachronistic that it really hasn’t existed in first world nations in nearly a century?
As you ponder these deep, business shattering thoughts a portly man in a suit will burst in. He’ll be an eccentric billionaire who wishes the world was more like it used to be, when people could own slaves, and he’ll immediately be taken with your operation.
“How much for that barrel?” he’ll say.
“A farthing!” you’ll shout, slightly less angrily than before but still sort of generally angry.
“I’ll take it!” he’ll shout back, excited at the idea of being angry for no good reason.
“Okay!” you’ll shout back at him, as he writes you a check for two million dollars with “A Farthing” written in the notes field. Thus will begin your only actual relationship with a client, and the only true friendship you will ever know in life.
Congratulations Cooper!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Congratulations Dragon's Tooth Soldier!
The earth rolls and roils above you, seemingly a solid mass, but you know in your bones this is false. It is but dust, tightly packed and surging invisibly. There are holds to be had if one knows where to look, places to grab to pull yourself up into the waking world and do what you born to do.
Once you’re called to do so.
You’ve waited there for thousands and thousands of years, entombed and alone, waiting for the sweet contact of seed upon skull that would tell you your time was upon you, and today the tooth will fall upon you. You’ll feel it clink on your skull and stir your bones. You’ll reach up, grab it, feel it cold and tight in your hand, and reach your free hand upward, beginning your arduous trek to the surface.
A mortal could not do it. Few men at all could, feel out the hard spaces in the earth, the few places truly real. Ancient stones, clumps of particles unmoved for eons, drops of consecrated blood, an infinitely porous network of all too-frequent items that make up truly solid walls of belief in a world governed by abstract concepts. But you were born, raised, and trained to move this way, and you do so with furious speed, your withered muscles creaking with the effort, surging with each success until you taste air for the first time since your seventeenth birthday and let your fleshless jaws slacken and smile.
You’ll take in the sunlight, the feeling of the wind on your sinews and the sound of life unmuffled upon what’s left of your ears. You’ll feel satisfied for the first time in thousands of years. That is until you open your eyes from your reverie and look around.
You’ll be struck by just how empty the field you’ve been called to is right away. Where are your brothers and sisters, myrmidons waiting for their clarion call to ride to one last endless battle? Then you’ll look at the summoning tooth and realize what summoned you: a hard, tiny little seed casing. An acorn.
Frustrated, you’ll search the field for someone who might’ve summoned you, a party to hold responsible for this indignity. You’ll search as you were trained, beating the ground for the tiniest marker that would show you what has passed. While you look for signs of an assailant who, for all you know, was just an errant squirrel who would never know of what he had done you’ll find tiny bones and scraps of clothing, remnants of an army long defeated. You’ll see rusted blades and bits of armor while your marks and realize, with terrible finality, that you’ve found what’s left of the only family you’ve ever known. You were to rise with them, to fight with them and, finally, die a final death at their side. It was never meant to be this way.
Tears will be an impossibility to you, that part of your body having left you long ago. But even if they were an option you’d still ignore them. You were never meant to weep or wonder. You were meant to persevere against all odds, until death.
So you’ll offer to your comrades a silent prayer, a moment’s thought and memorial, and then you’ll begin your march to the nearest city. When you reach the outskirts you’ll be a little surprised at how well the man sitting at a computer takes your outlandish appearance. You’ll be a bit taken aback at his lack of abject horror, but in a world with The Hills and Jersey Shore there are new monsters far more fearsome than anything from ancient tombs. It is a feeling you’ll come to terms with over the next few months, as you travel across the ocean in the holds of ships and in tubes filled with jet fuel, flung into the air and held aloft by force until they reach their target. There will be such things as you never dreamed of, and as you slowly rise to the head of the fearsome new Hydra that is the Wells Fargo bank, you’ll come to terms with them. But you’ll always feel a little bit of joy that your brothers and sisters didn’t have to live in such a world where horror was so much more terrible and subtle.
Congratulations Dragon’s Tooth Solider!
Once you’re called to do so.
You’ve waited there for thousands and thousands of years, entombed and alone, waiting for the sweet contact of seed upon skull that would tell you your time was upon you, and today the tooth will fall upon you. You’ll feel it clink on your skull and stir your bones. You’ll reach up, grab it, feel it cold and tight in your hand, and reach your free hand upward, beginning your arduous trek to the surface.
A mortal could not do it. Few men at all could, feel out the hard spaces in the earth, the few places truly real. Ancient stones, clumps of particles unmoved for eons, drops of consecrated blood, an infinitely porous network of all too-frequent items that make up truly solid walls of belief in a world governed by abstract concepts. But you were born, raised, and trained to move this way, and you do so with furious speed, your withered muscles creaking with the effort, surging with each success until you taste air for the first time since your seventeenth birthday and let your fleshless jaws slacken and smile.
You’ll take in the sunlight, the feeling of the wind on your sinews and the sound of life unmuffled upon what’s left of your ears. You’ll feel satisfied for the first time in thousands of years. That is until you open your eyes from your reverie and look around.
You’ll be struck by just how empty the field you’ve been called to is right away. Where are your brothers and sisters, myrmidons waiting for their clarion call to ride to one last endless battle? Then you’ll look at the summoning tooth and realize what summoned you: a hard, tiny little seed casing. An acorn.
Frustrated, you’ll search the field for someone who might’ve summoned you, a party to hold responsible for this indignity. You’ll search as you were trained, beating the ground for the tiniest marker that would show you what has passed. While you look for signs of an assailant who, for all you know, was just an errant squirrel who would never know of what he had done you’ll find tiny bones and scraps of clothing, remnants of an army long defeated. You’ll see rusted blades and bits of armor while your marks and realize, with terrible finality, that you’ve found what’s left of the only family you’ve ever known. You were to rise with them, to fight with them and, finally, die a final death at their side. It was never meant to be this way.
Tears will be an impossibility to you, that part of your body having left you long ago. But even if they were an option you’d still ignore them. You were never meant to weep or wonder. You were meant to persevere against all odds, until death.
So you’ll offer to your comrades a silent prayer, a moment’s thought and memorial, and then you’ll begin your march to the nearest city. When you reach the outskirts you’ll be a little surprised at how well the man sitting at a computer takes your outlandish appearance. You’ll be a bit taken aback at his lack of abject horror, but in a world with The Hills and Jersey Shore there are new monsters far more fearsome than anything from ancient tombs. It is a feeling you’ll come to terms with over the next few months, as you travel across the ocean in the holds of ships and in tubes filled with jet fuel, flung into the air and held aloft by force until they reach their target. There will be such things as you never dreamed of, and as you slowly rise to the head of the fearsome new Hydra that is the Wells Fargo bank, you’ll come to terms with them. But you’ll always feel a little bit of joy that your brothers and sisters didn’t have to live in such a world where horror was so much more terrible and subtle.
Congratulations Dragon’s Tooth Solider!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Congratulations on Remembering Where You Put Your Wedding Ring!
You didn’t want to lose it. That’s a fucking nightmare. You get home one night and bitch is all like “Harold. where’s your ring” and you’re all “I think I left it at your sister’s” and then you’re on your ass looking for a new job because your wife sent kiddy porn to everyone at your old job from your email. Then you start sucking dick just so you can have some more paint to huff and you end up working for some bunch of future fags because all that paint gave you the ability to see the future and I lost track of my train of thought somewhere in there.
Anyhow, today you’re going to realize, waist dip in a grave you’re digging down by the old mill, that you have no idea where the fuck your ring is. You’ll check your duffel bag, your car, the floor of the abandoned slaughterhouse where you killed the girl, and there won’t be anything anywhere. You’ll bite your lip and pout, imagining just what this will do to your marriage and, by relation, your career as a senator.
You’ll see for an instant the flash bulbs as those whorish reporters with their loud, raping eyes cry out their headlines, shrill and edged for your ears. “Impotent, hooker murdering senator divorced by implausibly hot wife, full story on page nine. It’ll be enough to make you want to choke the life out of a teen drifter.
But after a few minutes using the breathing exercises that the Dali Llama taught you you’ll think of all the places you could’ve lost it and then you’ll realize how foolish you’ve been. You’ll stop panicking, snap on a rubber glove and bury your hand in that hooker’s still warm corpse, carefully probing so as to avoid cutting yourself on any of her sharp, angular bones.
After almost ten minutes probing her many, many wounds and orifices you’ll pull your hand out and find, in your fingers, your ring, covered in viscera. You’ll laugh with joy as drop it into a ziplock bag for future cleaning and smile as you carefully re-dress the corpse for burial. Just like they say, it’s always in the last place you look.
Congratulations on Remembering Where You Put Your Wedding Ring!
Anyhow, today you’re going to realize, waist dip in a grave you’re digging down by the old mill, that you have no idea where the fuck your ring is. You’ll check your duffel bag, your car, the floor of the abandoned slaughterhouse where you killed the girl, and there won’t be anything anywhere. You’ll bite your lip and pout, imagining just what this will do to your marriage and, by relation, your career as a senator.
You’ll see for an instant the flash bulbs as those whorish reporters with their loud, raping eyes cry out their headlines, shrill and edged for your ears. “Impotent, hooker murdering senator divorced by implausibly hot wife, full story on page nine. It’ll be enough to make you want to choke the life out of a teen drifter.
But after a few minutes using the breathing exercises that the Dali Llama taught you you’ll think of all the places you could’ve lost it and then you’ll realize how foolish you’ve been. You’ll stop panicking, snap on a rubber glove and bury your hand in that hooker’s still warm corpse, carefully probing so as to avoid cutting yourself on any of her sharp, angular bones.
After almost ten minutes probing her many, many wounds and orifices you’ll pull your hand out and find, in your fingers, your ring, covered in viscera. You’ll laugh with joy as drop it into a ziplock bag for future cleaning and smile as you carefully re-dress the corpse for burial. Just like they say, it’s always in the last place you look.
Congratulations on Remembering Where You Put Your Wedding Ring!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Observation and Play!
Video games have always been a social pursuit in some way. Like all narrative art they promote an abstract sort of social interaction through introversion, a self-exploratory experience that simultaneously limits the player and provides them with, one day, conversational fodder. But games, unlike most narrative media, also have a secondary social component: observation.
It can be as simple as passively watching someone play Pong on a Commodore display or as involved as pointing and directing a player over his shoulder while he tries to solve the puzzles of Zelda’s dungeons, but as graphics improve and marketing makes games more and more of a socially acceptable medium people who don’t necessarily play games are sitting and watching them more and more often. Sometimes observers take on the role of a guide, helping their friends navigate particularly difficult puzzles. Sometimes they take on the role of a caretaker, making sure that gamers, health-conscious as we are as a people, don’t forget to eat or leavethe couch to defecate. And sometimes they just watch games because they enjoy it, enjoy the dynamic of observation and the action in front of them.
But what makes a game observable? Is something like Mirror’s Edge, where the action is almost incoherent to the player at times, interesting to watch? What about something like Wii Bowling, which is mind numbing when played alone. This ephemeral quality is clearly something developers consider, however round-aboutly, when designing games artistically and structurally. What, then, makes a game watch-able?
Sometimes developers make design choices, seemingly from the ground up, to make their game as palatable as possible for non-gamers. Super Mario Galaxy, for example, literally has a mode for passive observers to play along with, a feature which some of my friends have adroitly re-named “girlfriend mode” which lets a second player gather and fire star bits to help their fellow player out without the stress of directly controlling Mario. It’s a smart social aspect to a game which would otherwise be slow and tedious to watch, and a little bit disorienting. There are other elements that make it compelling to watch, things like a wondrously designed artistic style and dynamic, constantly shifting play, but girlfriend mode is what really makes Super Mario Galaxy so watchable.
Occasionally, however, art itself can be reason enough to watch a game. One of my favorite experiences with observed play was an occasion where I was asked to play through Shadow of the Colossus for a friend’s husband. He wanted to see the art and understand the story of the game but he didn’t think he’d have the patience or skill to play through it, so I was brought in, plied with beer and lunch, and asked to use my incredible gaming abilities to show him the world of Shadow of the Colossus. And, in the end, it became a very observable experience. Each time we’d sit down the house would slowly come to center around the game, watching the battle between anti-hero and guardian statue. At one point their roommate, a young man who had only a passing interest in games and no familiarity with the title whatsoever, started watching. By the end of the fight he was cheering with each stab, oohing with the writhing efforts of the Colossus to dislodge me. I had an audience, the staggering visuals and observably difficult play making the game interesting to watch, It was weird, and interesting, and owed itself almost entirely to the art direction Fumito Ueda put in to Colossus.
Then there are games that seem almost un-watchable. Most of these games are first-person experiences, unpleasant to follow over another’s shoulder. The visuals in most first-person games are fast and furious affairs, given to quick, sometimes mystifying changes which can even confuse players. Observers, who lack the incentive of actually needing to understand what the fuck is going on in order to play, don’t really have a lot to make them sit and watch. And even if observers wanted to watch first-person play most FPSes just don’t have a lot going on visually. Think of the Call of Duty games, where you wander through generic wilderness and muddled cityscapes. Or the aforementioned Mirror’s Edge, which is populated largely by monochrome environments and some of the most generic citizens imaginable. Mirror’s Edge loses points for using such a performance intensive engine to do so little, as well. Never before has so much processing power gone into rendering the manner in which a human eye functions for so little visual payoff. Even visually competent or exceptional games, like Far Cry 2 and Half-Life 2 are kind of boring to watch, experiences where awareness of what is going on off-screen is just as important as knowledge of what’s going on on-screen. It seems like hardcore games, conventional experiences we’re used to as a group, are sort of the worst candidates for observational play.
Which is what makes professional Starcraft and the broadcasting thereof such a mystifying enterprise. Perhaps the most prominent, and really the only organized example of observed play comes in the form of Starcraft tournaments broadcast to huge audiences Like, global audiences. It sounds like a miserable concept, literally watching replays of tedious games that involve lots of clicking and behind the scenes decision making, but because of some exceptional color commentary and a remarkable degree of complexity which has become totally accepted by the community and the people surrounding it watching nerds play Starcraft on television is actually pretty compelling. As absurd as it sounds I highly recommend it to anyone who finds games and the culture surrounding them even a little interesting.
It seems like the common thread in all these experiences is awareness of what’s going on, interaction with the activity of the game as an observer. If you don’t get what’s going on screen watching it won’t be that interesting for you, but if you comprehend the systems you’re watching the experience can be nearly as compelling as the game itself, especially when you’re watching actions come to a resolution. So maybe the elements that designers need to focus on when making their games are elements of transparency and representation of play rather than improving visual effects. Because making a game pretty doesn’t make it fun to watch if you have no idea what you’re looking at.
It can be as simple as passively watching someone play Pong on a Commodore display or as involved as pointing and directing a player over his shoulder while he tries to solve the puzzles of Zelda’s dungeons, but as graphics improve and marketing makes games more and more of a socially acceptable medium people who don’t necessarily play games are sitting and watching them more and more often. Sometimes observers take on the role of a guide, helping their friends navigate particularly difficult puzzles. Sometimes they take on the role of a caretaker, making sure that gamers, health-conscious as we are as a people, don’t forget to eat or leavethe couch to defecate. And sometimes they just watch games because they enjoy it, enjoy the dynamic of observation and the action in front of them.
But what makes a game observable? Is something like Mirror’s Edge, where the action is almost incoherent to the player at times, interesting to watch? What about something like Wii Bowling, which is mind numbing when played alone. This ephemeral quality is clearly something developers consider, however round-aboutly, when designing games artistically and structurally. What, then, makes a game watch-able?
Sometimes developers make design choices, seemingly from the ground up, to make their game as palatable as possible for non-gamers. Super Mario Galaxy, for example, literally has a mode for passive observers to play along with, a feature which some of my friends have adroitly re-named “girlfriend mode” which lets a second player gather and fire star bits to help their fellow player out without the stress of directly controlling Mario. It’s a smart social aspect to a game which would otherwise be slow and tedious to watch, and a little bit disorienting. There are other elements that make it compelling to watch, things like a wondrously designed artistic style and dynamic, constantly shifting play, but girlfriend mode is what really makes Super Mario Galaxy so watchable.
Occasionally, however, art itself can be reason enough to watch a game. One of my favorite experiences with observed play was an occasion where I was asked to play through Shadow of the Colossus for a friend’s husband. He wanted to see the art and understand the story of the game but he didn’t think he’d have the patience or skill to play through it, so I was brought in, plied with beer and lunch, and asked to use my incredible gaming abilities to show him the world of Shadow of the Colossus. And, in the end, it became a very observable experience. Each time we’d sit down the house would slowly come to center around the game, watching the battle between anti-hero and guardian statue. At one point their roommate, a young man who had only a passing interest in games and no familiarity with the title whatsoever, started watching. By the end of the fight he was cheering with each stab, oohing with the writhing efforts of the Colossus to dislodge me. I had an audience, the staggering visuals and observably difficult play making the game interesting to watch, It was weird, and interesting, and owed itself almost entirely to the art direction Fumito Ueda put in to Colossus.
Then there are games that seem almost un-watchable. Most of these games are first-person experiences, unpleasant to follow over another’s shoulder. The visuals in most first-person games are fast and furious affairs, given to quick, sometimes mystifying changes which can even confuse players. Observers, who lack the incentive of actually needing to understand what the fuck is going on in order to play, don’t really have a lot to make them sit and watch. And even if observers wanted to watch first-person play most FPSes just don’t have a lot going on visually. Think of the Call of Duty games, where you wander through generic wilderness and muddled cityscapes. Or the aforementioned Mirror’s Edge, which is populated largely by monochrome environments and some of the most generic citizens imaginable. Mirror’s Edge loses points for using such a performance intensive engine to do so little, as well. Never before has so much processing power gone into rendering the manner in which a human eye functions for so little visual payoff. Even visually competent or exceptional games, like Far Cry 2 and Half-Life 2 are kind of boring to watch, experiences where awareness of what is going on off-screen is just as important as knowledge of what’s going on on-screen. It seems like hardcore games, conventional experiences we’re used to as a group, are sort of the worst candidates for observational play.
Which is what makes professional Starcraft and the broadcasting thereof such a mystifying enterprise. Perhaps the most prominent, and really the only organized example of observed play comes in the form of Starcraft tournaments broadcast to huge audiences Like, global audiences. It sounds like a miserable concept, literally watching replays of tedious games that involve lots of clicking and behind the scenes decision making, but because of some exceptional color commentary and a remarkable degree of complexity which has become totally accepted by the community and the people surrounding it watching nerds play Starcraft on television is actually pretty compelling. As absurd as it sounds I highly recommend it to anyone who finds games and the culture surrounding them even a little interesting.
It seems like the common thread in all these experiences is awareness of what’s going on, interaction with the activity of the game as an observer. If you don’t get what’s going on screen watching it won’t be that interesting for you, but if you comprehend the systems you’re watching the experience can be nearly as compelling as the game itself, especially when you’re watching actions come to a resolution. So maybe the elements that designers need to focus on when making their games are elements of transparency and representation of play rather than improving visual effects. Because making a game pretty doesn’t make it fun to watch if you have no idea what you’re looking at.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Congratulations on Riding That Tiger!
Big cats ride horses and ponies all the time. Big fucking deal! They’ve got claws and huge brains and great balance. Fuck off, big cats!
What’s really impressive is shit riding on big cats that already ride on other shit. Like, let’s say a tiger is riding on a rhino in some rich dude’s zoo somewhere in Southeast Asia. You know what’d be even cooler? If a raccoon was riding on top of that tiger!
And even better, what if that raccoon was you? Sure, you’re just a small town raccoon from just outside Bemidji, but what if? What if today was your day?
Well turns out it will be. Turns out today you’re finally going to get the courage to climb on top of that tiger’s head and sit there on your hind legs in the most adorable pose imaginable while the rhino trots around, kind of angry about the whole thing. And someone’s going to take a picture and post it to their Facebook before they’re executed for taking a photo in the Forbidden Zoo. And then it’ll be in the aether of the webs and it’ll only be a matter of time before you become famous.
Internet famous.
Congratulations on Riding That Tiger!
What’s really impressive is shit riding on big cats that already ride on other shit. Like, let’s say a tiger is riding on a rhino in some rich dude’s zoo somewhere in Southeast Asia. You know what’d be even cooler? If a raccoon was riding on top of that tiger!
And even better, what if that raccoon was you? Sure, you’re just a small town raccoon from just outside Bemidji, but what if? What if today was your day?
Well turns out it will be. Turns out today you’re finally going to get the courage to climb on top of that tiger’s head and sit there on your hind legs in the most adorable pose imaginable while the rhino trots around, kind of angry about the whole thing. And someone’s going to take a picture and post it to their Facebook before they’re executed for taking a photo in the Forbidden Zoo. And then it’ll be in the aether of the webs and it’ll only be a matter of time before you become famous.
Internet famous.
Congratulations on Riding That Tiger!
Friday, October 15, 2010
Congratulations on Getting Some Exercise In!
Usually you’re not too big on exercise. And why would you be? Exercise is for losers with low self-esteem and fat people. But you do love to party.
So this Friday while you’re partying it down with your boys (yes you actually talk this way) you’re going to get your fix o’ exercise when you’re chased through the streets by wild fucking dogs.
“Shit bro! Dogs!” one of your douchey friends will shout as the dogs leap at him, taking him to the ground and setting upon his face and throat. “Ahhhhh!” he’ll elaborate.
“Whoa! Harsh, bra!” another friend will cry as dogs leap at him, devouring his eyes right out of his skulls. His screams will fade to muffle quickly as the dogs set upon him and devour his tongue.
“Dollar margaritas at Marios!” another friend will shout before he is hamstrung by dogs who then begin raping him violently. His cries will echo through the alley.
But you and your bro Chad will book it for the other side of the alley, away from Mario and towards the comfort of O’Galligans, the ethnically questionable Irish bar in your neighborhood.
You’ll pump your arms and legs and push your bodies as hard as you can, feeling your lungs burn and your eyes sting from sweat as the dogs draw ever closer to your heels.
“Party foul!” Chad will exclaim just before you hear the sound of his body tumbling, his screams as the hounds set upon him. You won’t turn around. You won’t have the courage, the desire. To look back at Chad is to invite his fate upon yourself.
You won’t stop running until you reach O’Galligans and slam your fist down on the bar, ordering a shot of jager and a beer. You’ll feel like you really earned it after watching all your friends die and doing all that gay ass running, and later on tonight when you stumble back to your empty frat house to play Halo alone you’ll think of how unfortunate it was that you were all beset by dogs and, briefly, had to engage in physical activity of some kind that didn’t involve a keg.
Congratulations on Getting Some Exercise In!
So this Friday while you’re partying it down with your boys (yes you actually talk this way) you’re going to get your fix o’ exercise when you’re chased through the streets by wild fucking dogs.
“Shit bro! Dogs!” one of your douchey friends will shout as the dogs leap at him, taking him to the ground and setting upon his face and throat. “Ahhhhh!” he’ll elaborate.
“Whoa! Harsh, bra!” another friend will cry as dogs leap at him, devouring his eyes right out of his skulls. His screams will fade to muffle quickly as the dogs set upon him and devour his tongue.
“Dollar margaritas at Marios!” another friend will shout before he is hamstrung by dogs who then begin raping him violently. His cries will echo through the alley.
But you and your bro Chad will book it for the other side of the alley, away from Mario and towards the comfort of O’Galligans, the ethnically questionable Irish bar in your neighborhood.
You’ll pump your arms and legs and push your bodies as hard as you can, feeling your lungs burn and your eyes sting from sweat as the dogs draw ever closer to your heels.
“Party foul!” Chad will exclaim just before you hear the sound of his body tumbling, his screams as the hounds set upon him. You won’t turn around. You won’t have the courage, the desire. To look back at Chad is to invite his fate upon yourself.
You won’t stop running until you reach O’Galligans and slam your fist down on the bar, ordering a shot of jager and a beer. You’ll feel like you really earned it after watching all your friends die and doing all that gay ass running, and later on tonight when you stumble back to your empty frat house to play Halo alone you’ll think of how unfortunate it was that you were all beset by dogs and, briefly, had to engage in physical activity of some kind that didn’t involve a keg.
Congratulations on Getting Some Exercise In!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Congratulations on Gooing Green!
Today you’re another more successful super-villain with greater aspirations than stealing shitloads of money from people who didn’t have very much to begin with. Today you’re a man in a lab coat with a purpose: turning all birds on the planet into giant sentient killing machines.
To this end you’ll have acquired a hefty grant from the NSF, a fully funded lab at UCLA and number of space-chemicals known to most people as “chemical X,” or variations thereof. Since there are like...seven of them there really isn’t a definitive name for them all, but trust me, most of them have names. But those names don’t sound anywhere near as cool as chemical X, so it’s fair to describe them all with that phrase. You’ll spend months combining chemical X ingredients in different proportions before spraying it on birds.
Sometimes the results will be promising, with the birds mutating into weird shapes and getting super aggressive before dying, but most of the time the birds will just die right away.
But you only need to succeed once, and that’s exactly what will happen for you. One day in your lab you’ll feed a tiny canary a little bit of blue powder made from just the right amount of the ingredients in chemical X, and it’ll explode the shit out of itself. It’ll grow from canary to condor in seconds and it’ll have row after row of razor sharp teeth and talons like knives.
You’ll reel back from it in horror, sure that it plans on taking revenge for your hubris-filled antics, but it’ll just lower its head and nuzzles you gently, cooing at you. After a few seconds of bladder-emptying terror your brain will start to function again and you’ll notice that the bird is just looking at you, puzzled.
You’ll reach up your hand and pet its peak, gently at first, then more forcefully until it coos with delight. After a few cautious, almost flirtatious minutes you’ll have it nuzzling your hand, squawking at you like you’re it’s mommy.
Delighted you’ll call in your lab assistant, Caleb, and have him start drafting up some grants for a distribution method for the powder. But even if you have to feed it to ever bird in the world personally you’ll already have accomplished your goal: coming up with a method of green transport that can, properly wielded, wipe out the entire human race in a matter of months.
Congratulations on Going Green!
To this end you’ll have acquired a hefty grant from the NSF, a fully funded lab at UCLA and number of space-chemicals known to most people as “chemical X,” or variations thereof. Since there are like...seven of them there really isn’t a definitive name for them all, but trust me, most of them have names. But those names don’t sound anywhere near as cool as chemical X, so it’s fair to describe them all with that phrase. You’ll spend months combining chemical X ingredients in different proportions before spraying it on birds.
Sometimes the results will be promising, with the birds mutating into weird shapes and getting super aggressive before dying, but most of the time the birds will just die right away.
But you only need to succeed once, and that’s exactly what will happen for you. One day in your lab you’ll feed a tiny canary a little bit of blue powder made from just the right amount of the ingredients in chemical X, and it’ll explode the shit out of itself. It’ll grow from canary to condor in seconds and it’ll have row after row of razor sharp teeth and talons like knives.
You’ll reel back from it in horror, sure that it plans on taking revenge for your hubris-filled antics, but it’ll just lower its head and nuzzles you gently, cooing at you. After a few seconds of bladder-emptying terror your brain will start to function again and you’ll notice that the bird is just looking at you, puzzled.
You’ll reach up your hand and pet its peak, gently at first, then more forcefully until it coos with delight. After a few cautious, almost flirtatious minutes you’ll have it nuzzling your hand, squawking at you like you’re it’s mommy.
Delighted you’ll call in your lab assistant, Caleb, and have him start drafting up some grants for a distribution method for the powder. But even if you have to feed it to ever bird in the world personally you’ll already have accomplished your goal: coming up with a method of green transport that can, properly wielded, wipe out the entire human race in a matter of months.
Congratulations on Going Green!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Congratulations on Finding the Penis!
You’ll be at the side of the highway, nose buried in the tall grass beating about with a stick. Your flashlight will be trained on the ground, looking for any sort of flopping or moving, anything that would tell you that something that isn’t supposed to be there is hiding in those bushes.
Greg will cry out to you.
“Found something!” You’ll roll your eyes in relief at the thought of getting him to the hospital so they can reattach it, but your heart will sink as he follows up, “Nope, wait, nevermind. Snake!”
You’ll sigh audibly and get back to pounding the grass, looking for something, anything. A trail of blood, a line of ants, anything that would indicate the presence of a detatched penis.
“Are you sure you really need this?” you’ll shout back at him. “I don’t think they’ll be able to reattach it. It’s been like, five hours.”
“Pretty sure, yeah,” he’ll reply. “I think I saw a movie about it once.”
“About penis reattachment?”
He’ll pause. “Well, I think it mentioned penis reattachment. Please, could we just find my dick?”
You’ll shake your head and take your newfound frustration out on a particularly smug looking patch of reeds near an exit sign, beating it so hard your flashlight goes off target, so when you hear the thwack of your stick hitting something that isn’t reeds you won’t be able to see what it is at first.
Panicking, you’ll sweep the beam back and forth over the ground cover, trying to find some sort of irregularity. On the third pass you’ll see it.
Wincing, you’ll grab the plastic baggie you packed and gingerly wrap your hand in it. Then you’ll carefully grasp Greg’s detached penis and fold the bag over it before placing it in your pocket.
“Greg!” you’ll shout at him. “I found your dick!”
“Sweet!” he’ll shout back, running towards you, his limp barely noticeable now. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The two of you will be silent for the rest of the walk back to your Camry, spare one sigh from Greg when you hand him a plastic bag holding his severed penis.
Congratulations on Finding the Penis!
Greg will cry out to you.
“Found something!” You’ll roll your eyes in relief at the thought of getting him to the hospital so they can reattach it, but your heart will sink as he follows up, “Nope, wait, nevermind. Snake!”
You’ll sigh audibly and get back to pounding the grass, looking for something, anything. A trail of blood, a line of ants, anything that would indicate the presence of a detatched penis.
“Are you sure you really need this?” you’ll shout back at him. “I don’t think they’ll be able to reattach it. It’s been like, five hours.”
“Pretty sure, yeah,” he’ll reply. “I think I saw a movie about it once.”
“About penis reattachment?”
He’ll pause. “Well, I think it mentioned penis reattachment. Please, could we just find my dick?”
You’ll shake your head and take your newfound frustration out on a particularly smug looking patch of reeds near an exit sign, beating it so hard your flashlight goes off target, so when you hear the thwack of your stick hitting something that isn’t reeds you won’t be able to see what it is at first.
Panicking, you’ll sweep the beam back and forth over the ground cover, trying to find some sort of irregularity. On the third pass you’ll see it.
Wincing, you’ll grab the plastic baggie you packed and gingerly wrap your hand in it. Then you’ll carefully grasp Greg’s detached penis and fold the bag over it before placing it in your pocket.
“Greg!” you’ll shout at him. “I found your dick!”
“Sweet!” he’ll shout back, running towards you, his limp barely noticeable now. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The two of you will be silent for the rest of the walk back to your Camry, spare one sigh from Greg when you hand him a plastic bag holding his severed penis.
Congratulations on Finding the Penis!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Congratulations Cokeface!
When you wake up in the morning sometimes you feel kinda down. Sometimes you don’t want to face the miserable dross that is our daily existence as human beings living in a modern world. Sometimes you just wanna quit, so you get yourself a little pick me up and carry on, thinking about how great your morning treat was.
Examples of acceptable morning treats include cups of coffee or tea, cigarettes, glimpses of rainbows, jerking off when you first wake up, taking a nip of Seagrams to make the commute bearable and tossing your partner’s salad. Examples of unacceptable pick me ups consist of cocaine, or cocaine analogous activities.
So today when you wake up, do us all a favor and don’t do a huge hit of coke. It doesn’t make you as cool as you think it does, it doesn’t make your wife love you more or your kids not hate your sellout, shitbird ass. It doesn’t even make you happy for that long. See a therapist, get some meds for your dick and just stop doing cocaine in the morning. Then we’ll all happily cheer you with cries of “Congratulations Cokeface!”
Examples of acceptable morning treats include cups of coffee or tea, cigarettes, glimpses of rainbows, jerking off when you first wake up, taking a nip of Seagrams to make the commute bearable and tossing your partner’s salad. Examples of unacceptable pick me ups consist of cocaine, or cocaine analogous activities.
So today when you wake up, do us all a favor and don’t do a huge hit of coke. It doesn’t make you as cool as you think it does, it doesn’t make your wife love you more or your kids not hate your sellout, shitbird ass. It doesn’t even make you happy for that long. See a therapist, get some meds for your dick and just stop doing cocaine in the morning. Then we’ll all happily cheer you with cries of “Congratulations Cokeface!”
Monday, October 11, 2010
Congratulations on Being Foiled!
Today you’re a white collar criminal who manufactures financial frauds like most people brew coffee: frequently and with little consistency. You’re good at it overall though. Even if all your frauds aren’t billion dollar ideas they’re still pretty solid examples of how to ruin the middle class in America while padding your own pockets.
So there’s no reason for you to be financially insolvent, ever. Spare one crucial flaw in your plan: you like to do all your evil financiering with a luchador mask on.
“Why the mask?” your hooker will ask.
“To hide my face from the public!” you’ll say before chortling as she pounds you in the ass.
“Isn’t it kind of obvious?” your protégé will ask as the two of you are pounded in the ass by hookers while having weed smoke blown in your faces by young Thai boys.
“The better to hide in plain sight!” you’ll wink before turning over so that you can make eye contact with your hooker, who will sort of just look sad.
“That’s incredibly stupid,” the FBI agent will say as he places handcuffs upon you so that he can lead you out of your office while your co-workers look on, quite literally caught red-handed, wearing a luchador mask while cooking the books.
“You’ll never take me alive, copper!” you’ll shout over your shoulder back at him. This will make him purposefully bang your head into a door while he leads you out, giving him a glimmer of satisfaction in the work he has achieved for the day.
At the court hearing, however, they’ll refuse to let you wear the mask. It will sit a few feet away, at an evidence table, but it might as well be on another planet. You’ll be naked, without the greatest source of your confidence. You’ll feel like a cuckold.
Congratulations on Being Foiled!
So there’s no reason for you to be financially insolvent, ever. Spare one crucial flaw in your plan: you like to do all your evil financiering with a luchador mask on.
“Why the mask?” your hooker will ask.
“To hide my face from the public!” you’ll say before chortling as she pounds you in the ass.
“Isn’t it kind of obvious?” your protégé will ask as the two of you are pounded in the ass by hookers while having weed smoke blown in your faces by young Thai boys.
“The better to hide in plain sight!” you’ll wink before turning over so that you can make eye contact with your hooker, who will sort of just look sad.
“That’s incredibly stupid,” the FBI agent will say as he places handcuffs upon you so that he can lead you out of your office while your co-workers look on, quite literally caught red-handed, wearing a luchador mask while cooking the books.
“You’ll never take me alive, copper!” you’ll shout over your shoulder back at him. This will make him purposefully bang your head into a door while he leads you out, giving him a glimmer of satisfaction in the work he has achieved for the day.
At the court hearing, however, they’ll refuse to let you wear the mask. It will sit a few feet away, at an evidence table, but it might as well be on another planet. You’ll be naked, without the greatest source of your confidence. You’ll feel like a cuckold.
Congratulations on Being Foiled!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Of Arcanum and the Arcane!
There seems to exist within the audience that reads game reviews a fascile belief that reviewers must play through a game in it’s entirety to accurately assess a product. If you just play as much as you feel like, as much as you can bear, you’re not getting an authentic experience, after all. Suffering through that middle part of the game really helps you enjoy the amazing denouement which you’d otherwise miss. How shitty would Mirror’s Edge be, after all, without prolonged indoor battles where you have to run in circles to deceive and defeat enemies so you can reach its lackluster finish? Why would anyone feel anything for the final frames of Jericho without enduring the retarded puzzle-game boss fights the game forces you through?
The logic of this sort of reviewing forwards the idea that we must assess products not by our experience with them but instead by the experience that can potentially be had with them, under ideal circumstances with optimum interaction. This is a huge problem, both for reviewers and the people who play games who, statistics show, rarely actually finish their games (thanks for keeping track, Microsoft and Valve). Instead of having products that are assessed as the experiences they are we end up with products assessed as potential experiences, items that can be interacted with in a certain way if you’re willing to set aside the problems inherent to them and knuckle down.
When we do hear about these problems they’re usually of the technical variety, rather than problems of execution or design. They come out in reviews as nitpicky commentary on flaws rather than earnest statements about playing the game, flaws in the experience, flies in our ointment no less real for being constructed. It’s like talking about why you wanted to walk out of a movie rather than describing the moment you did. You might as well be telling us the feelings going through your head, complaining about why you wanted to stop playing rather than describing the tactile sensation of snapping the demo disc in your be-cheeoted hands. But this is a problem with the task itself, perhaps.
Games are so much a product of player experience that assessing them with any sort of objective process is doomed to failure, the same way that films and books cannot be reviewed in absence of the reader or viewer. There have been movements, small movements, to push towards some sort of disclosure from the people who assess games as to just how much they’ve played and how, but they’ve been furtive things. It seems all we’ve garnered from this movement is information on the version played by the reviewer and the manner in which it was procured. For the most part the people who read reviews seem to want some kind of authority in them, something they can assail or accept at leisure, a surety assailed by details a caveats.
They desire a simplification of the systems that they enjoy rather than a recognition or a discourse on the complexity of those systems. Some reviewers, like Tom Chick and Julian Murdoch, dole out this recognition, although they do so in a fashion that is often unrecognized and frequently met with outright hostility from the community. Some, like Chet and Erik of Old Man Murray fame, made a career out of parodying the completely absurd world of games reviews while simultaneously documenting their experiences with games, buried underneath layers upon layers of irony, but even Chet and Erik received more than their fair share of real life hate-mail.
Why, then, are we surprised when our industry seems broken? Our watchdogs, even those with the best of intentions, are met with hostility from all sides. Reviews that draw too much ire threaten the retention of the writer. Reviews that target the industry too harshly threaten ad sales and cooperation from developers and publishers. And the people who act as professionals, the people who treat games like just another medium to be assessed by critics, are met with outright aggression from the people they attempt to serve. The world of reviewing games is something of a mad world. And it is with this statement about the state of reviews that I preface my review of the first ten hours I spent playing Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicks Obscura, which I purchased from Good Old Games on Friday and played almost constantly from installation until starting this essay late on Sunday.
I purchased Arcanum based on the recommendation of a friend. He compared it favorably to games like Torment and Baldur’s Gate, old school RPGs that played hard and didn’t forgive mistakes gladly. I bought it because there weren’t a lot of games that I found particularly engaging on the market at present, and because money has been tight enough that I couldn’t afford the pricey few that I did. I bought it expecting a challenge, a challenge that was wrapped around an engrossing story that would suck me in and only occasionally let go for side-quests that would temporarily occupy my furtive attention.
Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with a genuinely funny introductory character rather than an overly serious role-player’s wet dream. A monk who is largely unfamiliar with the tenants of his own religion? Who is most adept at breaking and entering and beating the shit out of people? The world of Arcanum was far from what I expected, but I wasn’t disappointed. It had humor, the kind most games try for and fail miserably. It had that old school gameplay I loved, although I had to rework the game so that the combat functioned in turn-based mode since the default real-time mode moved so quickly that the entire experience was one big incoherent mess which usually ended with my corpse. It had a character creation process that, no shit, took me almost an hour to work through, considering I read and considered each and every background and racial makeup before I made my decision. This was a hard-assed game, a game that offered plenty of information and was willing to let me make mistakes if I didn’t pay attention to what was going on around me.
Or so I thought.
See, at first the somewhat directionless main story of the game, with its key notes of a nebulous ancient evil and a dying gnome handing me a very tiny package for an obscure child who some weird religious dudes might be involved with, was kind of enchanting. It made me think of how games used to function on loose plots like that, where you were expected to follow the main story because it was the main story, and not because of any particular ties to characters or the world itself.
But as the world unfolded around me, as I came to understand it better, I came to care less and less about following the story and more and more about seeing the world. Which wouldn’t be a problem if Arcanum was slightly less difficult. Because it is quite insanely difficult.
Let me lay out a situation for you. Let’s say you’re walking along in the wilderness. It’s your first big trip to a big city and you’re walking with your best buddy, Virgil, who seems to mean well enough. You see some wolves. By now you’re level 5. You’re pretty handy with a gun, but you’re low on bullets, but hey. They’re fucking wolves. A knife should do just as well, right? You’re a grown ass woman. You should be able to cut those mothers up.
Less than a minute later you and Virgil are both laying face down in your own blood. Turns out wolves are really hard to kill, especially when they get the drop on you. Never mind that you’ve been killing your way through droves and droves of their cousins, the ever present “ailing wolves,” or that you managed to take out those bandits with some fancy use of explosives and what little ammo you had left in your bandity pistol. You’ve just been undone by wolves. Regular, run of the mill wolves.
See, that’s the issue with Arcanum. While at first it’s all about throwing information at you it quickly decides to stop. Even with the open source manual Troika was kind enough to put up on their “defunct company” wiki, which is actually a really useful piece of internet, the game’s mechanics are puzzling. It took me almost three hours to figure out how to identify an item. I still have no idea just how strong a given enemy is until I fight them, even if I do notice the tiny display informing me of their level, which means that if I haven’t saved my game recently I might be setting myself up for disaster. Because engaging in a risky fight isn’t just not worth it – it’s almost always suicide given how harsh the combat system is and how frequently critical failures seem to occur for me.
It could just be my relatively low level, but I’ll find myself being punished for just walking around. I explored a noble’s basement, for example, soon after entering Tarant, and I was literally assraped by mechanical spiders. I figured “how tough can spiders be?” Turns out the answer is “incredibly fucking tough.” But the only way I’d ever know that is by fighting them. For all I know they could’ve been no tougher than those bandits I ploughed through, or those rats I stared down. Which is a problem.
It’s not a problem because the game is hard, you see. It’s a problem because the game doesn’t let you know how hard it’s going to be. I could fight off an army of Kite shamans and be fine, but a single mechano-spider will ruin me without batting a steel eyelash. This is really a complaint generated by the intensely pampered conditions of contemporary games, to be fair to Arcanum. Baldur’s Gate, one of my favorite games of all time, was completely willing to toss you to the wolves at its earliest convenience. But it did seem to, more or less, warn you when it was going to put you through the meat grinder. Arcanum does it almost at random. It is quite literally impossible to make your way out of the passage of stone leading away from the crash site at the beginning of the game at level 1. Trying is suicide, and will leave you swearing at your computer. Likewise exploring various areas without explicit prompting is punishing, and the environment will almost never provide you with useful information on present threats.
In Baldur’s Gate I’d always have a warning of some kind, or some context to explain why a given fight was so hard. The assassins early in the game progressed at a steady clip, for example, but they never completely obliterated you, and they were always clearly “boss battles” of a sort, a challenge to overcome so you could feel safe in a given area. With the exception of one set of warnings from some guards I’ve seen nothing of the like in Arcanum. Entering an unlocked basement in the middle of a city or an inhabited church with a few rats in have both proven fatal experiences. Which isn’t a problem in and of itself, but in a game without an autosave function it’s incredibly rough. It makes me want to stop playing.
At least for fifteen minutes. Then I come rolling back to Arcanum. As I mentioned in a previous essay I’m a glutton for this sort of punishment, the sort of game where learning the mechanics are a meta-game unto itself. But I’m completely aware that this is an oddity. It’s something that marks me as a subset of the gaming populace, an aberration who seeks out challenges, who makes his fun tougher than it needs to be. And make no mistake, Arcanum is hard. It makes the original Fallout look easy and transparent. It makes the combat of the first Baldur’s Gate look forgiving. And it makes the resource management of games like Halo: ODST and Call of Cthulhu seem downright generous. It’s a game that will hurt you for trying to play it, and if you want an incentive other than the challenge of the game to keep playing you’re not going to find one. The story so far is as generic and bullshitty as anything I’ve ever played, including the original Castlevania, and it doesn’t look to be changing its tune anytime soon.
But I’d still recommend Arcanum to that rare subset of people who play games for the challenge or to experience a unique and compelling world. Sure, it has bugs up the wazoo and you need to tweak the options of the game from their default settings to make it even remotely playable (change the combat to turn based and thank me later, seriously). But it has so much depth to it, so many original challenges and experiences to offer that if you play games for the old school purposes of overcoming some serious ass challenges Arcanum is simply a game you cannot ignore. And if you play games to immerse yourself in original fictional environments while largely ignoring the “main story?” Arcanum has that too. And it’s now on Good Old Games for five dollars. Hint hint.
The logic of this sort of reviewing forwards the idea that we must assess products not by our experience with them but instead by the experience that can potentially be had with them, under ideal circumstances with optimum interaction. This is a huge problem, both for reviewers and the people who play games who, statistics show, rarely actually finish their games (thanks for keeping track, Microsoft and Valve). Instead of having products that are assessed as the experiences they are we end up with products assessed as potential experiences, items that can be interacted with in a certain way if you’re willing to set aside the problems inherent to them and knuckle down.
When we do hear about these problems they’re usually of the technical variety, rather than problems of execution or design. They come out in reviews as nitpicky commentary on flaws rather than earnest statements about playing the game, flaws in the experience, flies in our ointment no less real for being constructed. It’s like talking about why you wanted to walk out of a movie rather than describing the moment you did. You might as well be telling us the feelings going through your head, complaining about why you wanted to stop playing rather than describing the tactile sensation of snapping the demo disc in your be-cheeoted hands. But this is a problem with the task itself, perhaps.
Games are so much a product of player experience that assessing them with any sort of objective process is doomed to failure, the same way that films and books cannot be reviewed in absence of the reader or viewer. There have been movements, small movements, to push towards some sort of disclosure from the people who assess games as to just how much they’ve played and how, but they’ve been furtive things. It seems all we’ve garnered from this movement is information on the version played by the reviewer and the manner in which it was procured. For the most part the people who read reviews seem to want some kind of authority in them, something they can assail or accept at leisure, a surety assailed by details a caveats.
They desire a simplification of the systems that they enjoy rather than a recognition or a discourse on the complexity of those systems. Some reviewers, like Tom Chick and Julian Murdoch, dole out this recognition, although they do so in a fashion that is often unrecognized and frequently met with outright hostility from the community. Some, like Chet and Erik of Old Man Murray fame, made a career out of parodying the completely absurd world of games reviews while simultaneously documenting their experiences with games, buried underneath layers upon layers of irony, but even Chet and Erik received more than their fair share of real life hate-mail.
Why, then, are we surprised when our industry seems broken? Our watchdogs, even those with the best of intentions, are met with hostility from all sides. Reviews that draw too much ire threaten the retention of the writer. Reviews that target the industry too harshly threaten ad sales and cooperation from developers and publishers. And the people who act as professionals, the people who treat games like just another medium to be assessed by critics, are met with outright aggression from the people they attempt to serve. The world of reviewing games is something of a mad world. And it is with this statement about the state of reviews that I preface my review of the first ten hours I spent playing Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicks Obscura, which I purchased from Good Old Games on Friday and played almost constantly from installation until starting this essay late on Sunday.
I purchased Arcanum based on the recommendation of a friend. He compared it favorably to games like Torment and Baldur’s Gate, old school RPGs that played hard and didn’t forgive mistakes gladly. I bought it because there weren’t a lot of games that I found particularly engaging on the market at present, and because money has been tight enough that I couldn’t afford the pricey few that I did. I bought it expecting a challenge, a challenge that was wrapped around an engrossing story that would suck me in and only occasionally let go for side-quests that would temporarily occupy my furtive attention.
Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with a genuinely funny introductory character rather than an overly serious role-player’s wet dream. A monk who is largely unfamiliar with the tenants of his own religion? Who is most adept at breaking and entering and beating the shit out of people? The world of Arcanum was far from what I expected, but I wasn’t disappointed. It had humor, the kind most games try for and fail miserably. It had that old school gameplay I loved, although I had to rework the game so that the combat functioned in turn-based mode since the default real-time mode moved so quickly that the entire experience was one big incoherent mess which usually ended with my corpse. It had a character creation process that, no shit, took me almost an hour to work through, considering I read and considered each and every background and racial makeup before I made my decision. This was a hard-assed game, a game that offered plenty of information and was willing to let me make mistakes if I didn’t pay attention to what was going on around me.
Or so I thought.
See, at first the somewhat directionless main story of the game, with its key notes of a nebulous ancient evil and a dying gnome handing me a very tiny package for an obscure child who some weird religious dudes might be involved with, was kind of enchanting. It made me think of how games used to function on loose plots like that, where you were expected to follow the main story because it was the main story, and not because of any particular ties to characters or the world itself.
But as the world unfolded around me, as I came to understand it better, I came to care less and less about following the story and more and more about seeing the world. Which wouldn’t be a problem if Arcanum was slightly less difficult. Because it is quite insanely difficult.
Let me lay out a situation for you. Let’s say you’re walking along in the wilderness. It’s your first big trip to a big city and you’re walking with your best buddy, Virgil, who seems to mean well enough. You see some wolves. By now you’re level 5. You’re pretty handy with a gun, but you’re low on bullets, but hey. They’re fucking wolves. A knife should do just as well, right? You’re a grown ass woman. You should be able to cut those mothers up.
Less than a minute later you and Virgil are both laying face down in your own blood. Turns out wolves are really hard to kill, especially when they get the drop on you. Never mind that you’ve been killing your way through droves and droves of their cousins, the ever present “ailing wolves,” or that you managed to take out those bandits with some fancy use of explosives and what little ammo you had left in your bandity pistol. You’ve just been undone by wolves. Regular, run of the mill wolves.
See, that’s the issue with Arcanum. While at first it’s all about throwing information at you it quickly decides to stop. Even with the open source manual Troika was kind enough to put up on their “defunct company” wiki, which is actually a really useful piece of internet, the game’s mechanics are puzzling. It took me almost three hours to figure out how to identify an item. I still have no idea just how strong a given enemy is until I fight them, even if I do notice the tiny display informing me of their level, which means that if I haven’t saved my game recently I might be setting myself up for disaster. Because engaging in a risky fight isn’t just not worth it – it’s almost always suicide given how harsh the combat system is and how frequently critical failures seem to occur for me.
It could just be my relatively low level, but I’ll find myself being punished for just walking around. I explored a noble’s basement, for example, soon after entering Tarant, and I was literally assraped by mechanical spiders. I figured “how tough can spiders be?” Turns out the answer is “incredibly fucking tough.” But the only way I’d ever know that is by fighting them. For all I know they could’ve been no tougher than those bandits I ploughed through, or those rats I stared down. Which is a problem.
It’s not a problem because the game is hard, you see. It’s a problem because the game doesn’t let you know how hard it’s going to be. I could fight off an army of Kite shamans and be fine, but a single mechano-spider will ruin me without batting a steel eyelash. This is really a complaint generated by the intensely pampered conditions of contemporary games, to be fair to Arcanum. Baldur’s Gate, one of my favorite games of all time, was completely willing to toss you to the wolves at its earliest convenience. But it did seem to, more or less, warn you when it was going to put you through the meat grinder. Arcanum does it almost at random. It is quite literally impossible to make your way out of the passage of stone leading away from the crash site at the beginning of the game at level 1. Trying is suicide, and will leave you swearing at your computer. Likewise exploring various areas without explicit prompting is punishing, and the environment will almost never provide you with useful information on present threats.
In Baldur’s Gate I’d always have a warning of some kind, or some context to explain why a given fight was so hard. The assassins early in the game progressed at a steady clip, for example, but they never completely obliterated you, and they were always clearly “boss battles” of a sort, a challenge to overcome so you could feel safe in a given area. With the exception of one set of warnings from some guards I’ve seen nothing of the like in Arcanum. Entering an unlocked basement in the middle of a city or an inhabited church with a few rats in have both proven fatal experiences. Which isn’t a problem in and of itself, but in a game without an autosave function it’s incredibly rough. It makes me want to stop playing.
At least for fifteen minutes. Then I come rolling back to Arcanum. As I mentioned in a previous essay I’m a glutton for this sort of punishment, the sort of game where learning the mechanics are a meta-game unto itself. But I’m completely aware that this is an oddity. It’s something that marks me as a subset of the gaming populace, an aberration who seeks out challenges, who makes his fun tougher than it needs to be. And make no mistake, Arcanum is hard. It makes the original Fallout look easy and transparent. It makes the combat of the first Baldur’s Gate look forgiving. And it makes the resource management of games like Halo: ODST and Call of Cthulhu seem downright generous. It’s a game that will hurt you for trying to play it, and if you want an incentive other than the challenge of the game to keep playing you’re not going to find one. The story so far is as generic and bullshitty as anything I’ve ever played, including the original Castlevania, and it doesn’t look to be changing its tune anytime soon.
But I’d still recommend Arcanum to that rare subset of people who play games for the challenge or to experience a unique and compelling world. Sure, it has bugs up the wazoo and you need to tweak the options of the game from their default settings to make it even remotely playable (change the combat to turn based and thank me later, seriously). But it has so much depth to it, so many original challenges and experiences to offer that if you play games for the old school purposes of overcoming some serious ass challenges Arcanum is simply a game you cannot ignore. And if you play games to immerse yourself in original fictional environments while largely ignoring the “main story?” Arcanum has that too. And it’s now on Good Old Games for five dollars. Hint hint.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Congratulations on Selling All Your Comics!
“Seriously?” he’ll say.
You’ll nod.
“This one too?!” he’ll say incredulously, holding up your original copy of Spider Man #1.
You’ll nod, smiling at him.
“And all you want is my gun?”
You’ll nod one more time.
You know you won’t pass your background check, and you know that the comics would just go to waste if your mom found them. She’d just leave them in her attic or a storage unit, slowly rotting away until your sister found them and sold them on the internet. This is the best way, you’ll think, hefting the revolver in your hand as the portly young man picks up the first box of comics and steps outside to load it into his car.
Congratulations on Selling All Your Comics!
You’ll nod.
“This one too?!” he’ll say incredulously, holding up your original copy of Spider Man #1.
You’ll nod, smiling at him.
“And all you want is my gun?”
You’ll nod one more time.
You know you won’t pass your background check, and you know that the comics would just go to waste if your mom found them. She’d just leave them in her attic or a storage unit, slowly rotting away until your sister found them and sold them on the internet. This is the best way, you’ll think, hefting the revolver in your hand as the portly young man picks up the first box of comics and steps outside to load it into his car.
Congratulations on Selling All Your Comics!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Congratulations Cubicle King!
When the power goes out in your office you’ll know exactly what to do. You’ll grab your pipe from under your desk and start waving it in wild circles around your head, shouting “I’M THE KING! I’M THE KING!” all the while. Sometimes you’ll feel it connect and you’ll rotate it in a new direction. You’ll do that for about ten minutes until the lights come back on.
When they do you’ll be surrounded with a circle of co-workers, all of them armed, who have had their skulls caved in by some sort of mysterious, potentially pipe related incident. The rest of your co-workers, the living ones, will be cowering under their desks, staring in horror at the carnage surrounding you. Clearly they hadn’t read the memo.
You’ll smile grimly as you step atop your desk and hold your pipe above you.
“I KNOW EVERYTHING,” you’ll shout at the top of your lungs as one of your co-workers reaches above their desk to grab their phone, desperately punching 9-1-1 and listening for a ring, hoping you’ll have trouble striking their skull with a pipe while you’re beneath the desk.
Congratulations Cubicle King!
When they do you’ll be surrounded with a circle of co-workers, all of them armed, who have had their skulls caved in by some sort of mysterious, potentially pipe related incident. The rest of your co-workers, the living ones, will be cowering under their desks, staring in horror at the carnage surrounding you. Clearly they hadn’t read the memo.
You’ll smile grimly as you step atop your desk and hold your pipe above you.
“I KNOW EVERYTHING,” you’ll shout at the top of your lungs as one of your co-workers reaches above their desk to grab their phone, desperately punching 9-1-1 and listening for a ring, hoping you’ll have trouble striking their skull with a pipe while you’re beneath the desk.
Congratulations Cubicle King!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Congratulations on Feeling Kind of Invincible!
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!
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!
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!
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