Twilight: Journey Into the Abyss (Part Nineteen)

 

Chapter Twelve

Incoming threat: Beware, as a new villain enters the fray: An old obese guy that has to get around via wheelchair.

Scary indeed.

Ok, actually I have no idea what his story role is just yet to be honest, but he was certainly introduced as the spooky villain type, so I’m just going to run with it until told otherwise because I find it amusing.

Try harder: “[Billy’s, a.k.a. the obese dude’s] dark eyes flashed up to me again, their expression unreadable.”

But you’re so good at reading eyes! You’ve been practicing this whole book so far. Practically every other sentence is you reading some inane expression in someone’s eyes.

Is something the matter? Are you not feeling well? You can tell me. It’s ok. I know you’re capable of this. Just concentrate and try again. We’ll get through this together.

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Virtual Fighting - Surprisingly Accessible

 

I don’t want to speak too soon and jinx it or anything, but I think Virtua Fighter 5 might have one of the best difficulty curves of any fighting game I’ve ever played.

And this coming from a game I was expecting to be massively complicated and extremely difficult.

Weird, right? I know.

To be clear, it certainly is massively complicated, but the game seems to acknowledge this fact. It doesn’t hammer me over the head with difficulty right from the start and just expect me to catch up like most do. It gives me plenty of room to be a total n00b at first. It gives me the time to build both skill and confidence without being stupidly frustrated by a game that seems impatient for me to be much better than I actually am.

What a freaking concept!

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A Windows Realization

Recently, as part of an effort to kick-start my PC gaming after a nice, long lull, I decided it was time to finally reinstall Windows on the iMac that serves as my meager but serviceable gaming computer.

Faced with the prospect of reinstalling and dealing with Windows XP again, I almost ended the project before it started.

Thankfully, I pressed onward.

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Gaming by Numbers

My to-do list is taunting me. 

It sits over there in the corner, confident and quiet. You can practically smell the pride seeping out from underneath its shiny whiteboard surface. 

It has nothing to fear. No reason to ever believe its puny human master could ever achieve the impossible and manage to wipe the slate clean, clearing it of all the burdens of the past and eliminating even the need for such a twisted list of all things incomplete. 

My to-do list has taken over my life. 

Well, my gaming life, at any rate. 

It's a strange phenomenon indeed when choosing which game to play becomes more a tactical choice as to which title would be easier to wipe off of that accursed list than which game would actually be the most fun to play. 

Yet I cannot simply give it up. 

I have spent a rather staggering amount of money on games this generation. If I am to keep this up, I feel it is healthy to, at the very least, make sure I get my money's worth out of that which I have bought. The list is a nice physical reminder of how much cash I have thrown away that has as yet provided no value to me. 

The other service the list provides is helping to keep my rubbery interests in check. My attention bounces from game to game like an overenthusiastic bouncy ball, constantly drawn to the next big thing. A quick glance at that board gives me the mental equivalent of a nice thump on the head, reminding me that I do, in fact, have fun stuff to play right at my fingertips. The grass is always greener in the next month of new releases, it is true. 

So while the list indeed serves a valuable function as a counterbalance to some of my natural gaming tendencies, I still can't help but loathe the thing and the power it holds over me. 

How I long for the day when I can be trusted to be fully in charge of my own play time again. I wish for a more normal gaming life, savouring only a game or two at a time until I have extracted all they have to offer and then, only then, moving on to new pastures. 

My progress toward this crazy vision of my future is slow, but steady. Unfortunately, I still face the monumental obstacles of Christmas and an unbelievably packed first quarter of 2010. 

I must remain vigilant. I must march forward with my goal always in mind. If I am ever to defeat my list, I must suffer under it's reign a little while longer yet. 

Here's hoping for a less cluttered gaming future.

Lazy Afternoon Gaming

It was early one lazy afternoon and I found myself picking up my iPhone for some light entertainment, as I am oft tempted to do on such days. This was primarily because my cat had also decided it was a lazy afternoon and settled down for a long sleep in my lap, trapping me in my rather uncomfortable chair with only the iPhone in reach. 

I swiped aimlessly left and right through my screens of apps, and it occurred to me that I had rather a large number of games on my phone. It prompted me to question whether this was a proper use of my time and money. After all, my to-do list is long indeed. Wasn't there something more important I should be doing instead?

I briefly became frightened by the idea that I had been chucking away valuable playing time on these worthless little time-wasting morsels. When did I decide it would be a good idea to purchase so many of these things? Aren't they just so much junk food cluttering up what should be the gourmet meal of my gaming feast?

After a little thinking, and a little gaming, I decided that my fears were unfounded. 

First off there's the argument that the iPhone is a perfectly legitimate gaming platform that really can do more than just provide mobile versions of trashy Internet Flash games. While this is certainly true, the game I was playing when the troubled thoughts began to cross my mind was not what one would call the height of iPhone gaming achievement, so this argument is a little beside the point. 

No, the real issue here is what gaming is truly all about: fun. 

It is remarkably easy to forget that sometimes. I frequently drown myself in conversations of games as art and storytelling through interactive media and other such nonsense and I develop an aversion to these simpler pleasures. 

Well, if not an aversion then at least a hefty sense of guilt when I allow myself to partake in them. 

But these little bite-sized chunks of gaming on the go have reminded me that it's healthy to let all that haughty stuff go every once in a while. No, of course I don't want them to devour all of my time, but the same can be said for heavier fare. Moderation is a virtue. 

Just because I'm guiding a rollercoaster around a track by tilting my phone instead of guiding my protagonist to his ultimate destiny by immersing myself in a vast fictional world doesn't mean I should feel bad about it.

It's true I won't even play some of these casual time-wasters more than once or twice. Forgettable? Perhaps. But so is a stick of gum and a pack of that costs just barely less than some of these games.

As for the more expensive ones, I'm sure I spent more than their price of admission on equally forgettable and useless arcade games, back in that magical time when those used to actually exist.  

I have decided that my protagonist isn't going anywhere. I can get back to him later. Right now I have some people that would very much like to go around a loop really fast.