Tinker, Gamer, Techie, Fried

 or "How I Spent My Weekend, by Salem MacGourley."

The weekend started normally enough. I'd dragged a dear friend through the horror that is Aliens: Colonial Marines (made better, but not great, by the overhaul mod), and we'd just finished late Friday night. We were considering playing just a bit of another game before calling it a night, but we took a break first. I went to the restroom and fixed a drink, and when I'd come back, my computer had shut itself off. I turned it back on, sat down, and...

The LEDs came on. The fans spun... then stopped. And started up again. And then stopped again. And started up again. And repeated this a few times.

I sent my friend a couple of messages stating that I suspected the computer had overheated, and took the time for the weekly call to my mum. 20 minutes later, it was still refusing to power on completely. This had happened a couple of times before, but leaving it off for 10 minutes fixed it. This time, though...this time it was through.

So I called up a friend in Texas and he was on the phone with me through various tests. I ripped out all of the external components and tested: same thing. I opened the case and disconnected the video card; same. I swapped memory around; same thing. Unplugging the hard drives let it boot into the BIOS, but as soon as I'd attempt to boot to anything, even a flash drive with the windows installer on it, it crashed again.

After much frustration and loud swearing, we determined that the issue was most likely the CPU. This was unfortunate, because if wasn't covered by warranty, it would have been a $250 replacement. Fearing the worst and being stranded without a comforting screen, I went to Wal-Mart and bought the cheapest stand-in I could find: a $200 HP Stream laptop. I spent as much time as I could researching and reading tech sites for an alternate solution on the stuttering and sputtering little potato, and I eventually found another possible culprit: the power supply.

Fortunately, I'd needed a new power supply when I'd bought a video card a few years back,  as the original did not have the proper connectors for the video card. After figuring out a way to make the archaic and under-powered power supply connect to the current-gen motherboard, I powered it up... and the system booted to Windows. Later that day I was off to Best Buy for a new power supply (I hate waiting for shipping when it comes to emergency parts), and some replacement fans as I'd noticed two of them weren't turning and had cables frayed beyond repair.

Oracle (yes I named my computer after Barbara Gordon, shut up) is now currently back online and functional, as well as properly cooling again. I returned the now-unneeded laptop to Wal-Mart, and learned a valuable lesson last weekend, one that nobody should ever forget:

Windows 10 should *never* be put on a laptop with only 2gb of RAM. Don't buy an HP Stream. They're junk. Fork over the extra hundred bucks and get a real laptop, even if it's an under-powered piece of junk, because even then it won't be as worthless as an HP Stream.

The Most Notable Something-or-other Awards of 2013ish (Part the First)

 Yeah, so I'm a few weeks late for a proper "Best of 2013" entry, and not all of these were actually released in 2013, but I played (most of them) in 2013, and these were some of the more notable entries of the year(ish). I've been told that time is an illusion, End Of The Year Best Of lists doubly so, and nowhere else does this hold true than in dealing with someone as grossly irresponsible with their time as I am.

I'm a proper gamez jurnalist, guys. Really.


The What GTA Should Have Been award: Sleeping Dogs

I have fond memories of playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas. These were games that had wildly different subject matters (80s excess vs 90s gangsta culture), but concentrated on making an immersive world that never took itself too seriously and were never afraid to go over-the-top bonkers to entertain. GTA IV became more and more painfully dull and grim the more I played it, to the point that I never finished it. Sleeping Dogs was the first "serious" Sandbox Crime game (Saints Row doesn't count) that I felt compelled to see through since my negative experience with GTA IV.

Hong Kong was such a beautifully fleshed-out city, that was graphically more impressive than GTA's Liberty City, and Dogs was one of a string of Square-Enix titles (like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Hitman: Absolution) that were lovingly ported to the PC, going so far even to include a free HD texture pack. The combat also benefits from being more melee-focused than firearms. I think the only complaint that I can make is that some of the DLC maxes out certain stats and dumps money on you, thus breaking the otherwise well-done progression system.

The Maximum Bro-Mode award: Lego Batman 2
Honorable Mention: Lego Marvel Super Heroes

Before I left the world I knew behind and moved to the mountainous deserts of New Mexico, I spent a week with a dear friend of mine, playing Lego Batman 2 to 100% completion, and nearly completing the first one afterwards. The Lego games are the pinnacle of couch co-op. Teamwork, frustration, and moments of sheer hilarity in a bonding experience for gamers of any kind.

33 hours in less than a week.

When my dear friend came to visit me recently, we played through the story campaign of Lego Marvel Super Heroes, and, while it wasn't *quite* as entertaining an experience as Lego Batman 2, it was still worth the time we put into it, and I felt that bond again, especially every time he blew my Jean Grey into pieces with his Repulsor Rays and said "I'M HELPING!"

The I Like This Game Way More Than I Should award: Resident Evil 6
Honorable Mention: The Bureau:X-Com Declassified

Resident Evil 4 was, while silly at times, a masterwork in horror gaming. Resident Evil 5 was an absolute mess. I don't like Chris Redfield. The controls felt half-assed, like they wanted to make something more action-oriented, but were afraid to break the mold. The inventory system was terrible. The story made even less sense it ever had. Resident Evil 6 was terribly received by both the hardcore fans and critics alike, but I rolled the dice on a Steam sale and picked it up for a third of its retail price. I finished the entire game, all 4 campaigns, on normal, then proceeded to play them again on Hard. Then I played it with a friend. I clocked up nearly a hundred hours on a game that was a critical flop. That said, the game is gorgeous looking, the story makes sense (possibly moreso than 4's), and the final step towards action-oriented controls benefits the series greatly, at least in my opinion.

An entire 6 hour campaign being super-cool super-spy Ada Wong? Yes, please.

X-Com Declassified is a case of internet fury gone mad. There were two games in the works, one of them quite faithful to the old tactical strategy games, and the other a third-person shooter. Guess which one the internet was raging against. What really came to surprise me about this one was that it was essentially Cold-War era Mass Effect, with a hostile alien first contact. Having played through the game in the first week since I purchased it on sale, I can only complain that it was frustratingly shorter than I found myself hoping it would be.

The Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey award: Bioshock Infinite

As a game, Bioshock Infinite is dull as dishwater. The shooting is adequate. The gameplay is adequate. The enemies are.. well.. there. This is not a game that hinges on its gameplay, by any means. The things that it excels at are worldbuilding and storytelling, and the dissonance caused by a (sometimes too) shiny and clean world covered in both socio-political and physical human gore. Creating a bond between the player and a character that was so well-crafted that you genuinely cared about them like another human being by the end. And by weaving together an ending that, by all rights, should not even work, let alone justify and explain such a stultifying title as "Infinite." I think the only thing that prepared me for that ending was a lifetime of watching, reading, and listening to Doctor Who.

My heart broke an Irrational number of times during this game.

The First Game In Years to achieve 100% award: Tomb Raider
Honorable Mention: Assassins Creed Liberation HD

Sometimes, I play a game just once through and enjoy the story. Sometimes, if I really liked a game's story or gameplay, I'll play it through twice. If I find a game really outstanding, I'll play the story twice, and find a lot of the collectible items and hidden sidequests. The recent Tomb Raider, which I reviewed for another site, was quite a surprise for me. I think, before this game, the last time I'd gotten a 100% savegame was when playing GTA Vice City. When I get this new video card from my tax returns, I'll play it again, this time on properly high settings. Maybe even turn on Lara's special hair settings. The best part of this? I've never completed a Tomb Raider game before, let alone come near 100%. I usually get frustrated a few hours in and give up when I've spent 30 minutes repeating the same jump only to see Lara ragdoll to her death. Channeling everything between The Descent to the Uncharted series, this is how I feel Lara Croft should always have been portrayed.

The things this woman went through.. I felt tired just playing the game.

Assassins Creed, as a series, holds a special place in my heart. When I heard there was one released exclusively on the PS Vita, I was tempted to buy one for that game alone. An interminable wait later, Ubisoft delivers by releasing a polished version for PC. It's got its flaws, but it's definitely a worthy addition to the family, if a much smaller addition. 100% clocked at right about 20 hours. It'd take me that long just to finish the story in Assassins Creed II.

The This Is Terrible but So Much Fun to Laugh At award: Aliens: Colonial Marines

This was such a serious train wreck of a game. Years in development, more studios than I can count, a hugely popular license, accusations of re-directed funds (if not outright embezzlement), and legions of angry Alien fans. It is literally impossible to be objective about this game, so I'm not even going to try. This is a bad game. A very bad game. If it were released 4 years ago, it would have merely been a mediocre game. Its only real saving grace is that it's not a boring game, and that it has a cooperative campaign mode. I've played the game several times through with friends, and we've been in hysterics from everything from terrible clipping issues, blurred textures, the physics engine going mad, the game randomly deciding to teleport players a foot or two from their current location, and the infamous constipated Xenomorphs.

Part II coming soon!

I Need Some Real World Friends

     I often ironically (and sometimes unironically) throw the #GloriousPCGamingMasterRace tag around in my communications, and for good reason. I'm damn proud of being a PC Gamer. Games publishers like to give me broken titles, put intrusive DRM in my games, and deny me sequels to franchises I love, but I get such satisfaction out of playing on a system I built myself with my own money and my own effort, and having those games run twice as fast and look leagues better than their console counterparts. I like extending the time that a game is worth being played by hours and hours by adding mods and custom content to it. I like being able to play a game from 15 years ago, then quit out and play a game released just last month without changing machines.

     And yet, I still have a modicum of respect for games consoles. Well, OK, let me clarify.

     It's a running joke amongst the die-hard PC gaming crowd that "Nintendo makes the finest peasant-boxes around." And it's true. We like that Nintendo isn't afraid to innovate, to make new and bizarre things that sometimes frankly fall flat on their faces (Virtual Boy, Wii U) right out of the gate, or things that catch fire and leave everything else in the dust. Like the Wii, which ended up outselling both of its more powerful counterparts. Either way, Nintendo doesn't make underpowered computers that do the same thing my PC does, but weaker and with more restrictions.

     One other thing that Nintendo does that we respect is that it brings people together in the physical space. This is something that Microsoft tried to do with the Kinect, with laughable results. Let's face it, nobody likes the Kinect. Even now that it (allegedly) works, it's still a joke amongst the core gamer crowd. You get a Wii with Smash Brothers or an N64 with Mario Kart in a room, and you'll have a riot on your hands, and possibly some ended friendships depending on who gets the blue shell.

     I still have my Nintendo 64. I was briefly a console gamer, with three in a row Nintendo systems of the NES, SNES, and N64. I bought mine back when Wal-Mart still had layaway, and got the bundle with the "Atomic Purple" controller and Pokemon Stadium. The N64 was the birthplace of Smash Brothers, the point where Mario Kart and Mario Party really took off, and the home of Goldeneye. I've gone on record as saying the N64 was the last really great games console (even though if I'm pressed, I'll admit the Wii had more to offer) because I believe games consoles are built to do one thing better than PC, and that's catering to a crowd of real-life, in-person people-people.

     It used to be ritual that I would have friends over, and we'd all play Perfect Dark, the spiritual sequel to Goldeneye, with a crowd of MeatSims (dumb-as-bricks AI opponents). Hours would just vanish, and we'd all be hoarse from shouting. Even as recent as '09, 13 years after the console had been released, I had a hoard of drunk people in my apartment, playing Mario Kart until the sun came up.

     I still have the old soldier, and it still works. Still have a handful of games for it. Now I just need some willing participants to play it with me. Guess that means real-world friends again. For now, I'll leave you with the single-most beautiful piece of music ever composed, from one of the finest titles on the last great games console.

Something Something Needs, Not Something Something Deserves

     So I occasionally write about video games, if you haven't noticed. Because of this, I try to maintain an objective viewpoint when going into a game. It isn't always possible. If I pick up a new Call of Duty game, I'm going to be expecting about 4-5 hours of shallow corridor shooting. If I play one of those Bethesda RPGs, I'm expecting a ridiculously huge world with an obscene level of detail and tons of tiny in-jokes. If I'm approaching the third game in a highly successful and critically acclaimed series, my expectations are going to be high.

     Unless, of course, the game is made by a different developer, using the same characters but with different voice actors, and has garnered generally mixed to negative impressions from respected sources. This is not one of those times I went in with an objective viewpoint. Which makes what happens all the more frustrating and confusing.

     Batman: Arkham Origins has several strikes against it from the outset. The first two games, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, were developed by Rocksteady, an English development team who stunned the gaming world by releasing a game based on a licensed property that was not only good, but outstanding. Not just outstanding, but nearly flawless. It was written by Paul Dini, who was responsible for the best of the landmark Batman: The Animated Series with voices provided by Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin, among others from the same show. It treated the subject matter with a level of respect and love that had not been since in a licensed property since Goldeneye 007, and rarely since.

     Arkham Origins rubbed me the wrong way first with the title. Origins is one of those words (like Revelation) that is just lazy and over-used in gaming titles. Dragon Age, Rayman, FEAR 2, and probably a dozen others got there first. Gone is Rocksteady, replaced by an in-house studio for Warner Brothers. Most damning of all (in my eyes) is the replacement of Conroy and Hamill. Troy Baker is a talented voice actor, but it just sounds like he's doing a Mark Hamill imitation (albeit a good Hamill imitation) that just makes me miss Hamill even more. If you're going to be Joker, be your own Joker. Nobody wants to see you imitate someone else's Joker. Conroy is replaced with Roger Craig Smith, who has the dubious honor of voicing one of my favorite (Ezio Auditore) and least favorite (Chris Redfield) characters. His Batman lacks all of the dark humor and intimidation of Conroy's, and his performance is possibly the weakest.Batman has been redesigned so that he looks approximately halfway between his appearance in the first two games and his appearance in the Nolan films, which while good for what they were, I've had about enough of. And finally, that Freeflow combat system has been... tweaked? Changed? Something's off about the timing which has fouled up my ability to take out a room of thugs without a scratch, and I often find Batman punching thin air, or not doing a take-down move when he's supposed to, or even just some random street tough capable of throwing a punch faster and harder than Batman.
 

     With all of that said, though, I come to the most frustrating and confusing part of it all. I really went into this prepared to hate it. I went in fully expecting to be completely let down, but I wasn't. There's just enough familiarity there to make me feel comfortable, with enough new things to keep it feeling fresh three games into the series, where even Arkham City started to feel old at times. The dialogue really shines, with some really great lines given to Joker, Alfred, and Commissioner Gordon. Despite using the tired subtitle of Origins, it really does go to great lengths in the story, through both obvious events and background storytelling, to show us how things got from here through Arkham Asylum all the way to Arkham City. The story itself feels smaller, tighter, and more focused than the previous games, with characters from later games introduced and treated with great respect and a few really clenching moments. At one point, a character essentially vital to the lore was placed in great danger (see how I'm tap-dancing around spoilers here?) and I very nearly put my controller down, uninstalled, and walked away before the story resolved the situation quite adeptly.

     So, WB Montreal, I have to say. I stand impressed. I went in with the lowest expectations, and I was was proven wrong. It's not perfect by any means, and there are some glaringly terrible things, but I really like this game. Even the multiplayer is kinda fun, and if *I'M* saying that, it really means something.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

     So this last weekend was Black Friday, and for many it was a day where they stampeded en masse through retail stores that were open sinfully early in an attempt to make up for the previous months in a vicious cycle of cannibalistic, ritual discount shopping. I was home, though, as this time of year also marks one of a few great traditions on the life of a PC Gamer. For several years now, Steam has held holiday sales where games are priced ludicrously low, and PC gamers have gone on mad spending sprees where they come away dozens of games richer, and surprisingly not as poor as they'd thought.

     Lately, though, other online retailers have been getting in on this game, too. Amazon's got a rather reckless representative named Tony that posts deals on Reddit (such as Assassins Creed IV at 50% off, when it hadn't even been out a month on PC), and GreenManGaming, with it's cute little alien mascot, throw out crazy deals, too. The best part, if you're a loyal Steam user like myself, is that both of these digital stores also offer Steam keys for most of their games.

     Skyrim at $7.50? Dishonored for $5? Fallout New Vegas with ALL of the DLC for $5? Indeed. Indie hits like Dust: An Elysian Tale, Divekick, and Hacker Evolution for next to nothing? Yes, please. All in all, I walked away from that sale with 15 games and a few pieces of DLC for about as much as I'd get a new release title for. I'm now at 488 games on my Steam account, with a staggering backlog that I'll never get through (no thanks to Fallout: New Vegas taking up so much of my time with the Tale of Two Wastelands mod). So what were my spoils this time?

     Amazon brought me Saints Row IV for $15. Batman: Arkham Origins was $20, with $5 off for a promotional credit I got sometime in June the last time there was a huge sale. Far Cry 3 for $7.49. On the first day of the Steam Sale, I picked up MDK, MDK2HD, Duke Nukem 1, 2, and Manhattan Project, Party of Sin, Dead Pixels, and Evoland for about $13. Some pretentious French art title called Bientot l'ete and an indie helicopter game called Thunder Wolves for $5 apiece. All the Metro: Last Light DLC for $5.
    

Adorable Steam Seal courtesy of John Hernandez, C5 Studios

     I know it's a cash grab to separate me from my money for games I may not ever get around to playing, but as someone who is as ardent a gamer as myself, I can't help but get irrationally excited over the event every time it comes around, posting praising images of Gabe Newell and doctored pictures of Seals in an old in-joke about the "Steam Summer Seal" that happened due to a fortunate misspelling. Waking up every afternoon and checking that store page is strongly reminiscent for me of waking up at O'Dark-Thirty and scrambling to the Christmas tree, only it happens now at least twice a year, and goes for a week or two.

     I keep promising myself one of these years I'm going to just not buy any games at all and live off of what I got over the Steam Sales. I've got a backlog of a couple hundred games, and have been taking the time lately to replay a few favorites. I think this time, I'll try it. I've only got one more big-ticket game I'm looking for, as I didn't have the funds to spare to get Assassins Creed IV on that sweet, sweet sale Amazon had.

     Then again, last week of December's allegedly got another sale coming, so..

I'm More of a Team Player than You'd Think

The buzzing of the overhead lights is a persistent bug in my ear, and rather a bit of a distraction. My two mates share a nervous glance, and check their gear. DJ Scully adjusts that ridiculous balaclava and checks the tank on the flamethrower he salvaged from the last outbreak site, and Foster strings a crossbow bolt with shaking fingers. Two of our number dead in the last encounter, one before that. Who knows how many elsewhere in London falling every minute, torn to shreds and eaten by these cannibalistic monstrosities. I thumb a few shells into my shotgun and check the sights.

And then they're on us. Scully and I working as one: him setting the little fleshy ones ablaze, weakening their stretched flesh as the buckshot tears gaping holes in them two and three at a time. They keep coming, and we keep mowing them down, almost in a bloody trance, a dance of carnage. Then my heart drops, and the spell is broken, as I hear the roar of a chainsaw and a sick chuckle just underneath it. One of the big, nasty ones has gotten loose. A Scrake. Chainsaw for a hand, and looking for all the world like Hell's own surgeon general. Foster takes one look and cracks. He loses it and sprays the Scrake down with flames. It laughs from behind that stained surgical mask and charges him. The chainsaw bites deep and comes out the other side. Foster's screaming through his gas mask until he goes limp. The monster lowers his arm, shaking him off the chainsaw. We make eye contact, and I swear my heart stops.

The air rushes past my ear with a loud, low THWUP as the crossbow bolt connects, splitting the Scrake's head open. He drops to his knees, the chainsaw chewing its way through two of the little ones before choking to a stop. I nod at Foster, slip another few shells in, and bring the shotgun up again.

"F-MINUS SO FAR, FREAKS! TRY HARDER!"

     So sometime in the last week, the latest Call of Duty game came out, and I completely cannot be arsed to worry about it. 100,000 12 year olds are questioning the virtue of each others mums and each others sexualities as they quickscope and noscope and other such abuses of perfectly good marksman's rifles. The series has become so popular that in some circles it's not even considered gaming anymore, it's become its own thing. So I'm not going to spend any more time on that topic. I think there's enough I could probably write another entire essay reflecting on the good times I've had earlier on in the series.

     Instead, I'm going to offer a different point of view on online shooters and a recommendation. I really hate competitive shooters. Sometimes I'm really good at them, sometimes I'm really bad at them, but after an hour or two I'm just not having fun anymore. Even the ones that I know are really good, like Team Fortress 2, just get old and frustrating quickly for me. Cooperative modes, though, that's what I really enjoy. Be it a cooperative campaign like Left 4 Dead or Borderlands, or a horde mode like Mass Effect 3's or the Transformers: Cybertron series are just loads of fun for me.

     The one I'm going to recommend today has probably gotten more hours out of me than any multiplayer game to date. Killing Floor, from Tripwire Interactive, is a PC-exclusive game built on an aging version of the Unreal Engine, on a shoestring budget, with little to no publicity. What it does have is a lot of imagination, a dedicated development team, and a lot of love crafted into it. The guys making this game are the type to go to a gun range and know a weapon inside and out before crafting a digital representation of it.

     Killing Floor was released way back in 2009 as on official version of a much older mod for Unreal Tournament 2004. The development team has periodically released more content by way of maps, characters, and weapons, each time making sure not to release something that would split the community like the map packs that Call of Duty releases for almost as much as this game costs at full price. And the community has rewarded them. Over 3 years later (which is an eternity in multiplayer games), the community is still strong and surprisingly friendly. For the most part, new players are even welcome, as long as they're willing to learn how to overcome that early learning curve.

     It's a deceptively simple formula. You pick a character, join a server, select a specialization (perk), and kill monsters. Between each wave you hit up a trader who sells you weapons, armor, and ammo, and after the final wave you face a big, badass monster. The storyline is one sentence long. Horzine's medical experiments have gone horribly wrong and overrun London. Slow moving hordes of disgusting creatures come at you relentlessly until they're all dead or you've been overrun. It sounds dumb. It sounds simple. It sounds shallow and not terribly immersive but Steam tells me I've done this for 614 hours, and I picked this game up on sale for $5 I can't remember how long ago.

     Next time you think about jumping into one of those big, crowded, hostile online environments full of screaming teenagers, take a step back and try something different. You might find a long-term investment in a game like this. Gunnies especially will enjoy this, as you'll be hard-pressed to find a game that has better gunplay (without going into Tripwire's other major release, WWII sim Red Orchestra 2).

Killing Floor is available on Steam, and for shamefully cheap during their upcoming holiday sales.

Boots in the Dust

     There's a chill in the late autumn air, a wind carrying a warning of a coming bitter cold, of unnatural creature and desperate men. My boots crunch on the blasted gravel and dust of the hillside. I shift my rifle's weight from one shoulder to the other, adjusting the uncomfortable metal plate of my leather vest. Cresting the hill, I sit for a moment on a shattered piece of concrete, grimacing at the foul taste of the dirty water, choking back a momentary wave of nausea. Probably mild radiation poisoning. Have to get some meds for that in the next town, otherwise I could grow a third breast or fingers on my leg. At least, that's what the overseer always told us.
     Behind me, there's a shifting noise. I tense up, my rife falling from its sling on my shoulder as I drop to one knee, taking aim at the hill I just climbed and blowing the hair from my eyes. The safety catch releases as a silhouette comes into view and my finger approaches the trigger...




     I've been visiting some old stomping grounds recently. The Fallout series and I have some history, as most old school gamers do with it. I played the old games off and on, probably never actually finishing any of them, but spending plenty of time wandering about in them. Fallout 3 is a touchy subject for me, though. It was an outstanding game, a revelation in gaming even, as it was basically an Elder Scrolls game that wasn't about swords and sorcery. For those of us who wanted that kind of an experience but had no interest in the D&D type worlds, this was our world. All vacuum tubes faux-Leave it to Beaver and nuclear age paranoia.

     Fallout 3, though, was a difficult game. Due to the sheer size of the world and all the tiny little details of it, it was an incredibly unstable game. Even after fan patches, official patches, and countless mods, I still can't run it. I've rage quit the game twice, once the first time I ever tried to play it and once only six or seven months ago when I tried to play it again. Only after playing its quasi-sequel Fallout: New Vegas did I force myself through the game despite its  crashes, but for some reason or another it just flat-out will not play anymore on my system.

     Then I found the Tale of Two Wastelands mod. The entirety of Fallout 3, imported into Fallout New Vegas's more stable, improved, and more moddable engine. I'm about 5 or 6 hours back in now, just long enough to reach the second major settlement, Rivet City (a massive  aircraft carrier beached in a dried riverbed in Washington, DC) and it's a joy to be back. I have every intention of playing these two games to their conclusion yet again, even if it takes another 200 hours.

     I sincerely recommend the DC and Mojave wastelands as vacation spots for anyone that wants to chill at their games console or computer and get lost for hours and hours at a time. Don't be surprised if you start getting attached to certain things, too; thinking of Megaton as a home, or sharing quiet moments on a hillside with Rose of Sharon (don't call her Whiskey Rose) Cassidy. There's a kind of serene, broken beauty to be seen, and tiny stories to be told in graffiti left on buildings or the remains  of people huddled together in abandoned houses. I thought I'd had my fill of it, but this place will probably never not feel like home.

     Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are both available on Steam for cheap (and probably cheaper come the Winter Sale in late December).

Bioware, sit down. We need to talk.

     There comes a time in any relationship where you have to evaluate the good times and the bad times. You have to sit back and look at the broad scope of that relationship and see if it's at all healthy for both of you to carry on. It's a painful, heart-breaking process that requires objectivity and analysis, and can get you out of a situation that's just hurting you, or reinforce a bond that's stayed strong.

     My first real exposure to Bioware was Knights of the Old Republic. Unlike most sci-fi fans, I've never really been a big fan of Star Wars. My interest in the franchise peaked around Episode 1, but then quickly fell off again, but I've always enjoyed a good Star Wars game. I've even enjoyed a few bad Star Wars games. Knights of the Old Republic was far and away so different from anything I'd played before. I was mostly platformers, first-person shooters, or J-rpgs until I found this game. KOTOR had depth, story, and took the Star Wars franchise in directions I'd never seen it go, and really enjoyed seeing. A few years later, Jade Empire happened. An action-focused RPG set in Dynastic China, it sadly was not as well-received or remembered, but was a great experience nonetheless.

     Then came Mass Effect.

     I have never had such an emotional investment in a series as I have in Mass Effect. Commander Justine Shepard was the first time that my recurring character had a name and a consistent face. I remember slowly winning over Amazing Space Racist Ashley Williams and the first time I heard the smooth, dulcet tones of Garrus Vakkarian, who I would later test out 'reach and flexibility' with. The broad strokes of the game are stories that are easily recapped, but the emotional beats, growing to really care about these fictional characters, that stays with you.

     In Mass Effect 2, I felt the heartache as my ship was blown out of the sky. I felt impatient at Jack's rage and saw past Miranda's outer perfection to the insecurity that underlie everything she said and did. I had a moment with Garrus, and bonded a little more with Tali, who became my little sister when I shouted down the senate of her people in her defense.

     But the cracks were starting to show. Then came Mass Effect 3, and while the character moments still hit you left and right, there were these little... things that you just couldn't describe as anything but lazy. They gave you a hundred different types of weapons to choose from (and even builds where the weapons were superfluous), but you'd still be carrying the Predator pistol and Avenger rifle in the cutscenes. There were more SMGs, but the accuracy on them suffered, and you couldn't help but think "If only they'd hold them correctly, there'd be no reason for all these assault rifles." Apparently, no one in the Mass Effect universe understands the concept of a fore-grip. There was that ending that folded up all the branching differences in the story into what was essentially one result with differing colors. Letting EA keep the game off of Steam, where the other two games were and are still available. There was the multiplayer mode which, while great fun, was saddled with an in-your-face cash shop. Bioware's continued insistence to leave gamepad support out of the PC versions of their games, while still making the interface obviously pad-driven. While these things may have been disappointing, the worst part was Bioware sitting there on high basically saying "if you don't like this, too bad, you just don't get our artistic vision."

     DLC was released, first in the form of an overhaul to the ending and then later with the Citadel DLC which had a) a bonkers storyline and b) tons of content with your squad-mate family, but by then it felt too little, too late. Like bringing flowers when a relationship was falling apart. I think what I'm trying to get at with this painfully overstretched metaphor is that, Bioware, I think I'm breaking up with you. It's kind of scary knowing that there won't be that series there waiting for me with the next installment, even though you're already talking about a new one, but I think it'll be good for me to step out, try new things, play some bad games and good ones. Regret a few Steam purchases.

     Because, in the end, this relationship isn't a good one for me anymore. Shh. Don't look so surprised. To paraphrase one of the critics of ME3, it was always going to end this way.
    
     Doesn't mean there won't be a drunken hookup with ME4 is on sale for $5. I mean, nobody's perfect.

Justine, or Sometimes I'm A Woman.

     I'm sure you've all heard the theories and dismissals:   

• They're probably all a bunch of pervs, pretending to be girls online.

• Well, who wants to stare at a dude's ass for hours on end?

• They just want to play dress-up with skimpy armor!    

     I'm one of those weirdo guys that plays as female characters. Why? Can't be the first one. I never claim to anyone in multiplayer that I'm female. I'm willing to use my microphone, and have a distinctively male voice. As for the second, I'll play female even in first-person, where there's no arse to stare at. As for the last, I dress conservatively enough most of the the time (that ark hunter outfit below made me a little uneasy, but it just looks *so* badass) that I get hit on because other players think I'm really female because I'm not showing skin.

     Of all the games I play, the ones that hold a special place in my heart are the ones where you can create your own characters. I'll concede the point that there are a glut of 20-to-30-something, short-brown-haired white dudes as protagonists in video games, as there are in many forms of media, so my interest is always peaked at seeing a good, strong female lead. Give me a Faith Connors, a Jill Valentine, the new Lara Croft any day for a dash of variety in storytelling. If there's an option of male or female character, I'll actually feel more comfortable playing as the female character. There's a good reason for that, too.

Ark Hunter Justine

Commander Justine Shepard

     Which brings us to Justine. Justine is a topic I'm not always comfortable talking about, as there's a whole population boom of folk claiming head-mates and what-not (I swear I don't have a Tumblr account), but I was recently told it might make for good discussion. Justine was a loose set of viewpoints that floated through my head in my early days of writing, as I tried to inform a believable female voice to characters that I would write. I've always felt I had a gift for seeing the world from other viewpoints, and I felt that perhaps if I pushed that gift a little further, I could speak with a voice unlike my own. So a loose set of ideas and viewpoints remained in my head until such time that gaming started moving in a direction that allowed for deeper character customization.

     I think Commander Justine Shepard, Biotic Vanguard and XO of the Alliance frigate Normandy SR1 was the first time the name appeared. And appeared is probably the most apt term. I've never known a Justine in real life, and I can only think of a handful of pop culture folk that have the name, none of which had a particularly heavy influence on me. But Justine Shepard formed a more solid image in my head, with the first few defining traits. Red hair. Hard features, pale blue eyes, and a shotgun. Justine, from Vault 101, was the next time she appeared, and gained a touch more solidity. She'd be willing to help those who approached her, slow to anger, and a bit of a loner. Justine the Courier for the Mojave Express would try the diplomatic approach, but the moment you drew on her, she'd put you down. When she went back into space on the Normandy SR2, she fell in love with an old friend; he had reach, she had flexibility.

    Due to differences in game engine and artistic style, her looks do vary a little, but there are some things that never change. Red hair, blue eyes, almost always human (thanks, Kingdoms of Amalur, made me play a freakin' elf). Some way of getting right up in the enemy's faces, be that a cloaking device, biotic charge, or shotgun loadout. Sensible armor and/or clothing.  She'll negotiate, but she won't back down. She's fiercely loyal to her crew (except dumb muscle-heads that defy orders and wreck her shuttle), but wary of strangers.

Courier Justine, probably the most developed image of them all.

Justine, Dragonborn

Justine of the 3rd St Saints

      She's since been a celebrity gang leader, an Ark hunter, and someone who speaks with the voice of a dragon, but she's been the same person each time. She makes the same decisions that feel natural for her to make, picks the gear that would make sense for her to pick. It's almost like I'm not playing alone when I'm playing a game as Justine.

     Now, for those of you worried, I fully acknowledge that she's not a real person. She's merely a viewpoint in my mind that gets a lot of exercise. She has, however, grown past simply being a literary tool or a way to see through the eyes of another person. Either way, I take some comfort in the fact that I'm not picking my protagonists just to see some tail waggling in my face for hours on end.   

(In case you're interested, the games referenced here include the Mass Effect series, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, Saints Row The Third, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Defiance)

OCRD, or Salem Fails Weapons Handling Forever

     So we find ourselves at the intersection of gunnies and gaming again, I've handled firearms, having gone to high school in Alabama and spending a year or two of that time in the JROTC program. I learned how to load, handle, discharge, and maintain a weapon, but admittedly it's been years and years, and I've probably forgotten most of what I learned, but I remember the respect and caution that come with handling a weapon. In the intervening years, I have not kept up with firearms, but I've still been exposed to a reasonable facsimile thereof.

     I'm not sure if you guys are aware, but guns are kind of common in video games. Everything from platformers to first person shooters have them, and some of them are awfully authentic. I have well over 600 hours in a game called Killing Floor, which is a smaller, indie-ish title developed by a company out of Georgia called Tripwire Interactive. Their other big title is the Red Orchestra series, which is sort of a Call of Duty for people who want proper warfare, not the viagra-mainlining hyperactive arcade that the CoD series brings. Tripwire puts a great deal of love into crafting their firearms, with a scary focus on realistic sounds, reactions, handling, and reloading animations.

    All of this brings me to my point. I have a confession to make. My name is Salem, and I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Reloading Disorder. OCRD is a common, if overlooked, affliction in the gaming world. Independent studies* show that 3 out of every 10 gamers has this, and up to 75% don't even know they have it. OCRD can be a painful and debilitating condition* that manifests itself as compulsively reloading your weapon with a partially emptied magazine. Some people justify this behaviour by only reloading after a magazine is half-emptied or more. Some people...

     I was playing Resident Evil 6 earlier and trying out the quick-shot ability, which basically lets you fire a round in a 'from the hip' manner, to follow up with a melee kill on a stunned zombie. Naturally, this leaves you with a magazine missing exactly one bullet. Which I can't help but reload. The aforementioned Killing Floor will leave me reloading after every few shots, or any time there's not something currently in my cross-hairs. The problem is even worse if I'm playing something competitive like Call of Duty. I'll be so convinced that I'll need *every* bullet in the mag to take out another player that I'll spray a few shots, reload, and only to die face-to-face with someone while I'm stuck reloading my weapon. In real life, this would add up to a monumental waste of ammo, and perpetually unfilled magazines.

     Yet another reason why Salem should never be allowed near real firearms.


*there are no studies. I'm pulling this out of my ass. 
*see previous note. I'm still pulling this out of my ass and I know that actual, proper OCD really is a burden on a lot of people's lives, and mean no disrespect to those that have this or similar conditions. Except my ex-wife. I hope somebody rearranges your DVDs.

Patience in Gaming, or Where Is My Mind?

     According to the NPD, some big high muckity-muck of statistics, the average age of a core gamer these days is 30 years old. I'm what you might call 'in the average age range' of a gamer. I've been gaming, in one form or another, for most of my life. There's an odd pattern of what *kind* of games, though, if you track from beginning to present day, and it tells a story that I'm not entirely sure what meaning I should take from it.
     A few times in my life, I've owned various consoles, and for a while I even LARPed, playing Vampire: The Masquerade with groups of friends. As I understand it, V:TM doesn't even exist anymore. I think I've done most kinds of gaming short of your regular table-top stuff. Which is really a shame, as most of my associates and close friends over the years have been into table-top RPGs from dungeon crawling to urban fantasy. Sometimes I felt a little left out, but I never really took an interest in it anyways.

     There's a pattern I've noticed since settling in on the PC gaming side of things. It was around the time that the Nintendo 64 was winding down and I was starting university. I'd spent a while playing games on PC before that, but aside from a love affair with Carmageddon, mainly I downloaded shareware titles and played until I got bored, only to start the game over next time and never actually finish it. I started Hexen more times than I can remember, but I'm not sure I ever finished it. Then I got my hands on a copy of Command & Conquer.

     C&C was one of the first great Real Time Strategy games, and probably the second-biggest name in RTS behind Starcraft. I remember sitting above the battlefield and directing troops to victory from start to finish. Then came Starcraft. Not only did I play the campaign missions start to finish, but I got into the multiplayer, as I got my copy around the time I had access to my first high-speed internet connection. Protoss, turrets and carrier ships. Hours and hours sunk into it.

     Within the last few years, though, I've noticed a shift in my tastes that I can't explain. As I've grown older, I've gotten into more and more action-oriented games. Whereas when I was in my early 20s I would have been happy to play match after match of strategy games, now I see more and more of my Steam friends list playing Civilization 5 and I just can't be bothered. My Steam profile tells me that I've spent 824 hours playing Borderlands. 648 hours on Borderlands 2. 604 on Killing Floor. 776 between the two Left 4 Dead games. I have Final Fantasy 7, considered by many to be one of the greatest RPGs of all times, on my Steam account. I've played 45 minutes of it. On the other hand, the more action-oriented Fallout New Vegas had be for 275 hours. I seem to be leaning, to a scary degree, towards games where I can just turn my brain off and react, and I'm not sure why that is.

     I fear, possibly, as I've grown older, I've grown less patient. Perhaps I should look for this characteristic in other parts of my life as well. Introspection, ho!

In The Not Too Distant Future..

     So this November is the 50th anniversary of a grand tradition in Science Fiction, one that many of you are probably familiar with, and I know our dear Erin is (don't mention Matt Smith), but we're not here to talk about that one today.

     This November it will be 25 years since another institution, probably as near and dear to my heart as Doctor Who if not a little nearer and dearer, premiered in the wilds of a tiny independent station in Minnesota. November 24, 1988 was the premier of the first episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Twenty-five years ago Joel Robinson was launched into space by a couple of mad scientists, and staved off insanity by cannibalizing parts of his ship to build robots that helped him ridicule bad films. The worst of the worst of films.

     Eleven years later, nearly 200 episodes, and a feature film later, the show called it quits, with Mike Nelson (replacing Joel) finally escaping to Earth with the bots Tom Servo and Crow T Robot, where they passed their time... watching bad movies. The influence of the show can still be felt today, with many semi-famous internet critics making a decent living off of web shows inspired by the antics on the Satellite of Love. Not everyone was a fan, though. The star of Mitchell, Joe Don Baker actually threatened the creators of MST3k, and various other directors/actors involved have expressed butthurt at being ridiculed by them.

     The show resonates the most with me, though, due to my complete inability to take anything seriously. I cannot sit through anything without cracking a joke. I've stood before judges and barely dodged contempt charges because I couldn't shut my mouth. I've almost been removed from training classes because I couldn't stop asking blatantly humorous questions and derailing the class.

     Why am I bringing this up today? Well, I just got back from seeing Rifftrax Live. Rifftrax is Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Crow T Robot from the later years of the show (aka Michael J Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett). They riffed Starship Troopers tonight, live in theaters via a satellite feed from Nashville. I had my fingers crossed for them, what with Starship Troopers being a *bit* tongue-in-cheek already, but these guys have successfully riffed Casablanca, and that's quite possibly the greatest movie ever made. I've been to every live show they've had, and each one has been a riot. They're still releasing PSA shorts and riffed films, as well as MP3 commentaries for big-budget films over at in riffing rifftrax.com. The other part of the crew, led by Joel Robinson (aka Joel Hodgson) are running Cinematic Titanic, which I'm sad to say I haven't seen because their live shows aren't satellite-broadcast.

     Before I go, if you're a fan of the show, there's one question on your mind. Joel or Mike? I'll happily answer. I'm a Mike fan. No disrespect to Joel, but Mike's always sounded like he's having more fun.

Zombies Everywhere! or Does Resident Evil Need to be Scary Anymore?

     So in the recent Summer Sale on Steam, I picked up Resident Evil 6 on the cheap, and just the other day PC version of Resident Evil: Revelations went on sale as well. Being a long-time PC gamer, my experience with the franchise is... limited. I never owned a Playstation and the Windows versions always seemed to escape my attention, it being in the dark days before digital distribution, so I may be a bit biased. I'd played the original trilogy in chunks on the consoles of friends, but since Resident Evil 4 the series has more or less been steadily on PC. I understand the appeal of the old games, as they could be quite distressing with jump scares and limited controls, fixed camera angles, and item scarcity making a difficult and worrisome experience that was quite enjoyable.

     As a quick recap, if you're unfamiliar, Resident Evil (or Biohazard as its known overseas, and possibly a more suitable title) initially involved a zombie outbreak in Raccoon City (to simplify things).

     Of course, with the march of technology came improved or changed mechanics. Resident Evil 4, starring Raccoon City survivor Leon Kennedy, had a fixed camera angle, with over-the-shoulder aiming, which made it much easier to keep an eye on enemies and hit them properly, but also took the focus away from sheer horror and traditional zombies, making for a more action-movie like experience. It wasn't really so much scary anymore as it was tense. Ammo was still scarce. The monsters were tougher than your run-of-the-mill zombie. There were those bastards with the chainsaws. The improved mechanics made the game a lot smoother and more enjoyable to play, and the seeds were sown of modern Resident Evil.

     Resident Evil 5, which I often like to use as a literary punching bag, took the series as far from horror as I've yet seen. Chris Redfield, another Raccoon City survivor and from here on out referred to as Punch Rockgroin, was the focus of RE5, a soldier investigating a possible bio-weapons outbreak in Africa. This entry in the series didn't even come close to horror, being an outright action film of a game with tentacle monsters and not a traditional zombie in sight. The mechanics in the game felt like a natural evolution, with excellent controls, tight aiming, weapons with great kick, and outstanding graphics and sound, but the inventory system was dire, the storyline unintelligible, and as I mentioned before, it was a big dumb action film. Where Punch Rockgroin literally punches a boulder at one point.

     A side-title came out between these called Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. It was a pure action game that starred two groups of special operations groups, one in the employ of the US Government, and one in the employ of pharmaceutical and terminally suicidal/genocidal corporation Umbrella (originally responsible for the Raccoon City outbreak). It was a run-and-gun co-op game, that revolved around the events of the first game, with cameos by the first game's characters.

"Zombies."

     Resident Evil 6 kept the run-and-gun, being the first game in the main series that allowed you to shoot while moving, and introduced a much better inventory system than its predecessor, with 4 campaigns of decent length starring different characters. Leon Kennedy is back, with his campaign focusing on traditional zombies with a horror feel, Punch Rockgroin gets a campaign that's more big-dumb action verging on Call of Duty, Sherry Birkin (the child of an Umbrella scientist) gets an over-the-top crazy campaign, and super-spy Ada Wong gets a campaign where you get to be all-around awesome.

     The more games come out in the series, the more the fans cry about how they're not horror. On the other hand, the more games come out in the series, the more money they make, with each one turning a profit easily. The films, which are more or less unrelated to the games, get bigger and dumber and louder with each entry, and make progressively more and more money each time. I like to posit the idea that Resident Evil doesn't necessarily have to be scary anymore, as it hasn't for quite some time. Change is, sometimes, good, and the series has changed into extraordinary people being total badasses fighting crazy monsters. Leave horror to the Silent Hills and Amnesias. I'll probably get crucified amongst gamers for this, but I think I kind of like Resident Evil how it is now.

Isms in Games, or Just Who Is Your Role Model Here?

One of the really nasty things that happens when you get your social justice mixing with your video games is you start to lump in artistic displays with actual problems. I will openly admit that, due to video games being a sort of 'boys club' for so long, that ingrained attitudes and storytelling techniques will seep into the finished products that represent outdated and/or harmful attitudes, but there's been a disturbing trend of pointing fingers at things that really don't need fingers pointed at. Some of these things range from ham-handed to clever in their depictions, but they're still just that. Depictions.

In 2011, the sequel to the amazingly well-received and well-crafted Batman: Arkham Asylum was released in Arkham City, with a story that spanned most of the terrifying Rogue's Gallery of the Bat-Family, with cameos from civilians Jack Ryder and Vicki Vale, the League of Assassins, Calendar Man and a disturbing Rabbit-masked sequence with the Mad Hatter. The game expanded on the amazing gameplay and storytelling of the first in the series, introducing new mechanics, a vast city, and an entirely new gameplay style and playable female character with the Catwoman levels. Now, it could be argued that some of the female characters were a bit sexualized, but that's not what we're after. In the Catwoman levels, the thugs called her a bitch. Repeatedly. In anger. This was deemed, on the front page of Kotaku no less, to mean the game was sexist.

In March of this year, the Tomb Raider franchise was rebooted. Scripting the new game was one Rhianna Pratchett, daughter the one and only Terry Pratchett. Gone were the cheesecake tank-and-short-shorts of yesterday, replaced with battered cargo pants and sturdy boots. The pixelated boobs that were nigh-on-infamous were replaced with a more realistic female frame. The cocky, cold-blooded demeanor was replaced with a young, nerdy student who was eager to chase her ideas and turned out to have a spine of tempered steel. The things that Lara Croft endured in this game would have probably made me give up after the first 20 minutes or so. Every time I overcame a major obstacle, I felt a sense of accomplishment for myself, and a sense of awe at the personal fortitude that this woman was displaying. For context, this island is full of men that came from crashed aircraft or ships that have washed up on the island under similar circumstances to how Lara's ship was marooned. In the pre-release trailer for the game, one of them corners Lara, clearly intending her harm. For a half a second, his hand rests on one of her hips. The public outcry overwhelming. Lara Croft, rape victim. Rhianna Pratchett was crushed when she found out that's what people were taking away from her story.

That same month, Bioshock Infinite was released. The setting was a city in the sky founded by a religious zealot and set in the year 1912. The game was gorgeous, with a deep storyline, a fantastically well-crafted companion AI, and an ending complicated enough that Casey Hudson over at Bioware was probably steaming as the ending credits rolled. The Bioshock series has always dealt with serious political, social, and religious themes in a very serious manner. Bioshock Infinite was no different with the city of Columbia, a display of American exceptionalism run rampant. The city was a product of its time, with the wealthy white folk enjoying the carnivals and clean streets, the Irish providing the bulk of the manual labor, and the black population relegated to cleaning toilets and using servant's entrances. I think by now you're probably seeing a trend here. There were people that latched on to these things and decried the game and its creators as racists.

Now, I feel I'm getting a bit long-winded on the subject, so I'll take a break for the time being, and you'll get further ruminations on this in my next installment.

Alan Wake, or Writer's Block can be a Cosmic Horror

     So there are two things to remember when reading things I write. An intrinsic part of my personality is my pride in being a PC gamer, and that I've seen some shit in my day. There are spiral bound notebooks that I had full of things I wrote that I can only remember snippets of, that sadly went missing sometime between 7 and 10 years ago, the circumstances surrounding which maybe, just maybe, I'll go into one day. Once we've all gotten to know each other better.

     So, needless to say I went through a traumatic experience, my writings were lost to the aether, and I didn't write much of anything outside of a drunken rambling for a long time. Emphasis on drunken. One of the hallmarks of my relationship with our dear Erin is that I barely remember the circumstances of our first encounter. I probably left an obscenely rude comment whilst totally hammered. To this day, I can only get the mere gestation of a story started, and then run into a brick wall when I attempt to take it anywhere. I'm slowly getting better though, and its exercises like these that help most.



     Alan Wake was extremely late coming to PC, having originally been designed for, and released on console, as so many games are. The developers stated that there wouldn't be a PC port, claiming it was meant to be played on a couch, and at the time I believed them. The publisher was, after all, Microsoft. Considering MS hasn't published a game for PC since, oh, 2007 you'd think they didn't want you playing games on PC. Remedy did, later on, develop a PC port of the game and released it for PC. It sold so well it made back the cost of porting in less than 24 hours. The dev team even put a QR code hidden in the game that led to the message "Huh. Turns out this isn't too bad even if you're not sitting on a couch when you play it. Who knew!"

     As a teenager, I read a lot of Stephen King novels, and I apparently wasn't the only one. The first spoken words in Alan Wake, the game, are Mister King's name, and aside from being on entirely the wrong coast, the game plays out like an homage to King's works. But there's something deeper at play here, something that dredges up a lot of painful memories and brings a sense of catharsis by the end, leaving me with a feeling that while I may never completely escape that black void that formed around my creativity, I can find ways to work around it, and eventually get back to the world.

     Alan Wake, the man, is a crime novelist. Hard-boiled detectives and brutal, noir worlds. Its no surprise this was brought to us by the same people that did Max Payne. When we meet Alan, he's gone through a rough patch, drinking, pills, partying, and hasn't written anything in two years. His wife sets up a surprise vacation for him, as a way of trying to get him writing again, but some kind of dark force takes her from him and sets about wrecking his world. I can't help but feel that the entire game is a vivid metaphor for writer's block. It starts with a literal one, then as the action of the game progresses, it becomes a yawning, black, monstrous void of darkness, taking parts of Alan's life and sanity from him. As someone with the soul of a writer, not being able to write anything is emotionally crippling.

     At the time when I first played this game, it had been two years since my last creative spurt had run dry, so I really felt like I identified with Wake, having beaten my head against the brick wall of "I got nothing" for nearly as long as he had. Just without the advantage of a loving, supportive wife and a party lifestyle.      

At the risk of spoilers, Alan doesn't escape the darkness. There's no happy ending, where he's reunited with his wife and his world is put back together in a perfect little package. The traumatic events and the writer's block. But he finds a way to live with it. He finds a way to work around it, and to affect the world around him. And when we last leave Alan, he might have found a way to make it back to the world. It gives me a little hope. Finding little cracks in the block, ways to work around it, to where I'll be able to maybe string together a coherent, stable narrative. Of course, that all could be a metaphor for something else, but we don't want to go *too* deep. After all, it's not a lake, it's an ocean.

For you... the war is over.

There's a popular shooter series that's mainly known for its releases on the X-Box family of consoles called Halo. It's spawned countless toys, animations, web series, and off-shoot games. Names such as Peter Jackson have been tossed around in the hopes of making a feature film. I have a rather... unorthodox, and sad, perspective on the Halo series, being a PC gamer, and someone who gets emotionally involved in these stories that the single-player campaigns offer, as opposed to owning a games console and playing primarily multiplayer.

It was some time in 2005 that I happened across a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved for PC on a software store shelf somewhere. I'd heard of the game, but having long since left behind games consoles for PC gaming, I hadn't had a chance to play it, let alone get wrapped up in the online gaming community that was forming around it and its home system, the X-Box. The last time I'd played a multiplayer shooter, it had been the hours sunk into Perfect Dark, and its predecessor Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64. For some reason, the store had marked down this copy of Halo, so I picked it up.

I understand there's a lot of people who play these games, and others, solely for the online community and competitive multiplayer, but I'm not one of those people. For one, I'm terrible at competitive multiplayer. My brain simply cannot track an irrational human being, but put me against an AI, and no matter how random the movements seem, I can track a pattern. It's for this reason that when I try a game's competitive multiplayer, be it free-for-all, team deathmatch, or capture the flag, I rarely play more than a few rounds before going back to the campaign mode, usually in a state of frustration.

I still remember the first time, waking up in that cryo chamber in the Pillar of Autumn, testing my suit systems and hearing Jen Taylor's voice for the first time ever. Cortana is the reason I wish I had an AI as a friend. I remember seeing those little grunts for the first time, thinking just how incredibly stupid they looked as they fired their little needle guns at me, and the silly noises they made when I fired a shotgun into their carapaces at point-blank range. Being freaked out by the Flood and the corpses they re-animated to attack me with. The lonely walk through the Library. Racing a warthog through the wreck of the Pillar again, ending on a tense moment, with the first time Master Chief took his helmet off being teased.

I've always been, obviously, a big sci-fi fan. I grew up on the tail end of the original Doctor Who series, with classic Trek reruns and late nights watching The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, with Doctor Who following minutes afterward on PBS Saturday nights, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 sometimes showing late, late afterward. I can't help but feel, when playing through the first game, that Halo was almost a parody of high-concept sci-fi, with the overtly green, hyper-militaristic UNSC squaring off against a garishly purple, weird (and sometimes ridiculous) mix of alien species. Whatever it was, the aesthetics of the UNSC attracted me greatly and Covenant’s repulsed me.

I wasn't the only one, as around this time I started following the Red vs Blue web-series.

Several years later, Halo 2 was released. It's no coincidence that Microsoft delayed releasing it until after the X-Box 360, it's shiny new jewel in its gaming crown, was released. As a PC gamer, you get used to this sort of thing. It may have even gone unnoticed, if it weren't for a change in the landscape of PC gaming. Halo 2 was released the same month as Half-Life 2. I'd played the first Half-Life game, and was entranced. It may or may not be a contributing factor to how I never finished university. I was psyched for Half-Life 2, until I saw it came with this intrusive bit of software called Steam, which required me to be online whenever I played the game, and seemed to track what I was doing with my PC.

Needless to say, I uninstalled it and didn't touch Half-Life 2 or Steam for several years. My tune has, since, changed, but that's a story for another day. Instead, I played Halo 2. I had a blast racing on foot through the streets of Future Kenya, my powered armor propelling me along, trusty shotgun back in hand. What really surprised me, though, was the introduction of a second playable character. I had my hands on the enemy, it seemed. The Arbiter was introduced, the one whose very plans I had thwarted in the previous game, now disgraced and cast out because of *my* actions. I think it was about here that Halo stopped edging on parody and started taking itself seriously. I stood toe to toe with the Gravemind, with the only man tougher than Master Chief, Master Sergeant Avery Johnson, and I got a chill down my spine at "Sir, finishing this fight."

Then something happened. Or rather, it didn't happen. I look at a certain shelf in my apartment. At the figurine of Master Chief. The MegaBloks Warthog with the various UNSC and Covenant mini-figures fighting around it. The two different figures of Cortana. I waited. Six years later, I'm still waiting to finish the fight.

Halo 3 came and went, with no PC release. As did Halo: ODST, Halo: Reach, and now Halo 4. Most frustratingly, Halo Wars, a tactical real-time strategy game, which have *never* been successful without a mouse, was an X-Box 360 console exclusive. They even re-released Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game, with an updated engine and graphics. There's been rumors, here and there, of ports to the PC platform, but nothing concrete.

Recently, I got a huge twinge of nostalgia when “Forward Unto Dawn,” a web-series on YouTube premiered. It was a thrilling story chronicling over-achieving pretty young cadets, at least until things went sour and the Covenant attacked. Seeing a Covenant elite, in the flesh, being treated with the awe and dread that one of Alien's Xenomorphs would normally be afforded was chilling. And then He showed up. The man himself, Master Chief. Big damn hero personified, walking those scared kids straight out of hell.

Now, I talk a big game, about the "Glorious PC Gaming Master Race," but part of that's just bravado. I miss you, Chief. And you, Cortana. If I didn't have to buy an entire console just to see you again, I'd be right there in the fight with you. I hope, one day, to be running alongside you again.

Until then, I'll be waiting.. to finish the fight.