I Deserve Better

Buried between the piles of revelations and self-reflections of late, I come to realize that my time deserves to be better spent. That there is only so much of it left, and to spend more than a moment experiencing something bad is not worth it.

the long and the short

Short Cuts: Games I tried but have nothing to say about

Lollipop chainsaw (360): I played until the end of the first level and retreated to let my teen son play. It feeds all of his needs in its endless repetition and grind-rewarding scoring. The jokes are funny the first time, and repeated endlessly, reducing great ideas to tiresome experiences. Compounded by intensely linear design, Suda51’s penchant for beating a horse to death with another horse is well represented.

Payne in the ass: Max Payne 3 (360)

Max leapt and spun like a leaping and spinning thing, puking bullets in every direction, but unable to hit anything he aimed at. He grumbled to himself, dry and overly serious, deeply committed to the newfound film noir tone the original game had parodied. Max drank and took some painkillers, because that’s what haunted men do. They also shoot people.

A lot of people.

Meaty with a crisp feel: Rage (PC)

Light defines the experience of Rage. Well earned and unflattering comparisons to Fallout 3 and Borderlands aside, light and how we perceive it drives every frame of Rage. The air appears so clear and crisp that one can taste it, like morning in the mountains.

Time to Defeat: Dark Souls (360)

After a 30 min travesty with Demon Souls, I expected Dark Souls to beat down my spirit and break me in a similar manner. It did, it just took longer.

After fighting my way to the same boss a dozen times and spending 4 hours playing the same sections over and over, I finally conceded. The repetitive grind of pattern recognition and trial & error is not for me, though it is fascinating to watch my step-son wind his way through the game. He grinds souls veraciously, leveling and releveling, immune to the fear of losing souls, but still afraid of every new area. Dark Souls is a triumph of game design for players immune to crushing defeat.

Built for adults:Mass Effect 3 (360) SPOILERS

As Sheppard flung herself into a shimmering column of light, and smiled as she fell, I glanced over at my wife. This has been a shared journey, where I would only play when she had time and willingness to watch. She had been captivated by the characters and the story. She was weeping softly. She told me later, surprised at herself, that she couldn't believe that a video game had affected her so. Mass Effect 3 is a masterpiece. It is a capstone on unique experience of unrelenting ambition. If the extent of your enjoyment is tied to the cutscene at the end you have missed the entirety of the 30-40 hours that brought you to that point. Play it again, and reflect on the history across three games that brought Sheppard to this point. Revel in relationships gained and lost and if you are lucky, shed a tear. Mass Effect 3 stands with Journey as diametric proof of games as art. Rejoice.

Smells like bacon tastes like chicken: Dead Island (PC)

Dead Island released as a broken game on all platforms, but perhaps none more broken than PC. Visually stunning and relentlessly ambitious, it has however been patched at least 5 times on PC and several times on console in order to be playable. Some PC voodoo was necessary to make the game run at a smooth 60 fps at 1920 x 1080 on my HDTV or my monitor at 1650 x 1050.