Draw Something: Say Anything

There have been times when I've seen my life as a series of failures to communicate. My temptation is to turn inward, but at times like these the opposite is all the more important. We must flail, gyrate, and gesticulate, try anything to separate the truth from noise. Otherwise it's all just charades.

My cousin didn't get it...

A moment of clarity!

I know how you feel, Charlie Brown.

Dead Island: dead inside

 I wonder how he got up there...

Whenever I'm eating shit, I always try to pick out the most digestible clumps.

Like Dead Island, for instance, which seldom stretches out an excursion, or finds itself floating around after the moment has passed. Just straight onto the next fetch quest.

I can't think of any other games brave enough to let you run away from 85% of their challenges- unless you count Mirror's Edge, but who would do a thing like that to themselves?
 
On further reflection, "run past" is probably more accurate than "run away," seeing as how the amount of zombies on screen never nears the amount it would take to obstruct someone, let alone threaten them...Seriously, this game throws more F-bombs at you than zombies, and we're all immune to infection here anyway, right? Gosh that's so convenient!

But it wasn't this Tourettes-inspired dialogue or epic misunderstanding of what makes zombies any more compelling than subway panhandlers that bothered me...I wasn't even particularly put off wondering where all the straight-jacketed linebacker zombies came from...

What I never recovered from was how, even before your character learns that zombie apocalypse has struck, leaving wads of cash and candy bars in every conceivable corner and cabinet, they have no compunction against walking into the neighboring hotel room and looting it.

 Resigned Gamer Rule #6: Always pick the large black man.

Dark Souls: Bowling Alone

Okay, so I finally finished Dark Souls, and uncharacteristically enough, I did indeed start over again immediately.

I enjoyed revisiting old friends and foes, and knowing now what I didn't then, I enjoyed killing them. But it grew stale and I realized whatever fun was to be had on a second play-thru had to mostly be in multiplayer.

So I doubled down on being uncharacteristic and took a tour of the covenants, none of which I'd bothered with on my first play-thru.

I tried the Forest Hunters first, who are summoned to protect the Darkroot Garden from pesky snow-mobilers (incidentally: the idea of wilderness does not need defenders, just some crazy wolf trees and bad-ass mushroom people) but quickly found that going up against someone with at least 10 health potions while I was allowed none wouldn't exactly be a fair fight.

So then I tried the Blade of the Darkmoon, and was summoned to a room not even a third the size of the forest, where two people were standing around waiting to pound me, not three steps away.

So I figured I'd just play through a bit more, level up, see the sights, finally use all that humanity I'd saved, and along came a pantsless guy in a turban, waving what looked to be a gigantic red turd in my general vicinity. He smooshed it into the ground, and I guess I must have died from the sheer stink of it. He bowed.

I thought about jumping through the hoops required to join the Darkwraiths, where at least the invasion occurs at a time and place of my choosing, rather than asshole waiting to farm me, but then what? Spend ten minutes running around looking for them, for maybe a thirty second fight?

I'm sure I could have tried a bit harder and a bit longer, but my impression of the people playing PVP was that they were all running one scam or another. And sure, I could have evened the odds a bit, used a talisman to prevent them from healing, joined the Gravelord Servants to push others into invasions, or I could have walked The Path of the Dragon, but that path is just too damn long. Seriously, that shit is like going all the way to Queens for a cheap taco and a handjob.

I suppose, like the people who write stupid or misleading messages all over the floor, if you don't enjoy fucking with people, then there just isn't much fun in it. If anything, I got a chance to step outside my anti-social, bitter self and remember exactly why I don't play well with others...Because they aren't worth playing with.

Solomon's Boneyard: Until you are dead.

If I didn't know better, I'd think this game was some kind of sick joke. Locked in an ill-maintained cemetery after hours, scratching in the dirt for coins to unlock perks to help you find more coins to unlock perks to give you more rings to help you find more coins to unlock more perks to have better magic to prevent the ceaseless flood of undead from bumping-into-you-to-death for an extra 30 seconds this time. And then again.

No, the cemetery gate is not an unlockable perk.

Trying to remember the spell for jumping over fences...

Yes, I could have gotten all those perks sooner by paying a buck or two, but what fun would that have been? Seriously, who does that? A ceaseless horde of Walking Dead, you say? Thanks, I'll stay inside the gate.

Where have I been?

Excuses, excuses all, I know, but I just can't seem to finish a game. I lhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifike the credits to roll before I say anything, but to be honest I just haven't felt like writing, because I haven't felt like talking, because I haven't felt like thinking. I still don't.

I've logged over 70 hours down the rabbit hole with Dark Souls, and though the end is still a little ways off I'm already contemplating New Game +, which is not something I ever do. I already started over from the beginning about 30 hours in, which I also normally cannot abide. I haven't tried to follow the story or how the game progresses- I believe insanity is caused by trying to understand the unintelligible- but I can't put this game down...I've avoided enlisting or invading others in my quest, and remained a shriveled and solitary hollow in an endlessly expanding world, equal parts abusive and fair, unsympathetic and forgiving, full of unsolicited advice and silence. I like it this way.


I've also been playing Battle for Wesnoth and Solomon's Boneyard, which I'll try to write something about soon. For now, I play Dark Souls.