"Now" signifies a change in attitude -- though I would say that I'm clearly in denial. Whether I'm denying that I really like video games or denying that I don't like them is up to the parts of my mind that care. Right now, video games are a low priority, so the aforementioned parts of my mind look like an abandoned law office. A lonely, motionless ceiling fan does nothing to unsettle the layers of dust covering every surface of the hollow room. A desk with papers scattered carelessly by the wind still has various investigation tools lying atop it, left there by the last hopeless chap to delve into a subject deemed too frivolous for consideration.
Dramatic, yes, I know. My mind does that.
I'm sick of developers attempts at "story." So sick, in fact, I wish they'd just stop, give me a faceless pac-loid, and let me run around accomplishing some pointless task that makes me feel good for no particular reason. They just aren't very good at it, you see. Or maybe I hate stories -- that could also be it. You see, if I have to play or see another Manly McManalot in whatever power or unpowered armor running around, soaking, as it were, in his own douchebagginess like it was his sweat, I may just have to do exactly what I'm doing now. And do something horrible to Bungie, but that's beside the point (I can't get them all, so I won't even try). I'm just going to fade away into that female demographic that plays WoW with some male consort and perhaps a game from Japan every now and again. I'll be lucky if I get to the latter.
I blame Manny McMannington on this wholly misplaced idea that games are for wish-fulfillment, and everyone wishes to be a douche. If this were the case, I wonder why there are less baby-disemboweling and rape simulators, for, surely, those are the height of evil and the idea is that we secretly want to be evil. Regardless of what happens in Japan, I'd guess that these sorts of things wouldn't sell well. Even I'd go with Jack Thompson at that point, even if in the end it was completely unfair and a total violation of creative rights. See, some of us want to be douchebags because we don't realize that we either already are, or that we could be at any time, we just actually don't want to.
This brings us to "choices." Developers, you are not listening but for the sake of argument, I will address you. Stop. Giving. Me. Choices. The choices you give are made utterly meaningless by the fact that you have a system set up to measure my "good" choices and my "evil" choices. Don't pretend there's any ambiguity -- "paragon" and "renegade" translate, like good and evil, to "Pussy" and "Fuckbrain." By merely putting in a system of measurement, like it was more precious gold coins to collect and more completion rather than any sort of way to characterize yourself, you have destroyed the point of having choices. I don't pick "good" or "evil" because I want to; I pick "good" or "evil" because that equals points, and points equal more and/or different powers or dialog options or whatever gimmick is popular that week. And it's not like I can't tell which is which either -- you put them in the same goddamn order every single time and it is soooo obvious what is the "good" choice and the "evil" choice. Yeah, because YOU fucktards have it allll figured out, don't you? You know exactly what is right and wrong, because you made up the scenario, right? Ha! You and your concrete sense of right and wrong make me laugh! You know why? You're wrong. If not now, if not to Joe McJoepants, then later. So stop giving me choices, because they aren't choices. They are skill tree options with a "moral" tone.
I already mentioned that you, Disembodied Developer For-the-sake-of-argument Man (because you are highly likely to be a man), should stop trying to tell me stories. Here's why: you're bad at it. Or I hate stories. Either way, I want you to stop. See, you're stuck in a rut of XTREME! The world, universe, whatever must always be at stake, and for some reason I'm supposed to save it. Why should I bother when my character is Douchey McManpants? Or Miss Psychorella of the New Hampshire Crazy Bitches? You seriously are confused if you have both the theme of "everyone is a jackass" and "we should save everyone just because" in the same game. Perhaps you only underestimate the sense of nihilism that takes root in every human soul at some point. This, maybe, is why your main demographic is not 20-25 year olds. You see, we may be a poor lot, but we may also be a confused lot. Okay, just poor and I'm the only confused one. But my point is that the universe being at stake, really, truly, seriously, is not only old, but it is a rotting scarecrow at the center of existence. Oh no! The universe might not exist! Who fucking cares? If it stops existing, we're not going to be around to care about it, now are we? Or, the universe is going to be consumed by evil! Also not a big deal. See, if we all die and demons become the overlords of all existence, what's so bad about that? Demons are assholes and know it, and I can't say I think that something evil really can suffer as much as something that is good and evil. Oh no! The demons will kill each other for eternity! Or they'll enslave us! So? Oh no! We're enslaved by evil taskmasters! And? Seriously, and what? So we'll live short, miserable lives of pit slaves before we are sacrificed before the great spooky demon god-king? Okay. Tough luck.
See, the main problem with universe-at-stakery is that the universe is big and stuff, so we feel really special if we save it, but ultimately it is really big and stuff, so it can be a little hard to give a shit about that much stuff. So, really, knock it off.
Of course, anything smaller than the universe will inevitably have its own problems of I-don't-give-a-shitery. I don't care about your special little kingdom because everyone in it is a douche. I don't care about broken-utopia-land or humanity's survival because, again, everyone is a douche. It is easier to care about the goddamn Mushroom Kingdom because they aren't trying to send me any bullshit "message." I just get to romp around and stomp on goomba heads and no one is trying to tell me that humanity is worth saving. Get real. Humanity could very well be exactly NOT worth saving, and we'd still try to save it/ourselves.
Also, stop trying to immerse me by putting story on top of story. I don't care what people say about Assassin's Creed -- that was fucking retarded. Oh, you're an assassin in the Medieval Middle East! Oh no, actually you are the descendant of some fucktard and you're reliving his memories so the bad dystopian gubment can find his secret buried treasure! Y'know, I would've settled for "You're an assassin etc." "Oh but it's more immersive" makes me feel like you are actually convinced I am retarded. You don't have to give me an excuse for why I come back to life, have a quest log, and a map. That is sheer convenience (and those games that don't give you a map or quest log for that very reason are also bad -- if I get hopelessly lost I stop playing jerkface). Next you'll be telling me why there's a screen and a controller in my hand. You're actually a guy, playing a game, playing the memories of a guy who is playing a game, who is playing the memories of an actual guy who is a tremendous douche.
Finally, if I hear the word "innovation" one more time I will puke on the offender.
Of course, this is all me trying desperately to vent before the feelings turn me into a cold, humorless husk of a human being -- but I might already be there. In which case, this is a daily chore like taking a shower. See, I'm pretty much the gamer that no one in their right mind (and rightly so) is going to listen to. This may be because I'm in the wrong demographic both ways -- in that dead zone between "young" and "not-so-young," and I have a vagina. It may also be because I hate video games.
Yes, the games industry is just fine and quote meaningless numbers and make some claim about new art form. I'm probably just insane and, really, I should be used to that idea by now.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Blogger Bloggy Interface Thing
It's like all my creativity and fire gets sucked away as soon as I look at the posting screen. I just want to lie down and be calm.
... Maybe I need to find a new blogity thingy... I can't even rant about how I hate this interface! So boring! So lifeless! So squished and constricting!
... Maybe I need to find a new blogity thingy... I can't even rant about how I hate this interface! So boring! So lifeless! So squished and constricting!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Venomous Review of Movie: Superbad
I knew better, I really did. Now I'm going to be celibate and despise humanity the rest of my life.
Should have insisted we play Rock Band, but no, I let myself be subjected to the movie that has single-handedly killed any desire I might have once had for anything sexual. One can only take something one enjoys and watch monkeys insult it for so long before the taste for it is completely diminished. It also killed my faith in humanity, though Michael Sera may live.
Why?! Why is humanity a festering pustule of stupidity -- pulsing, gurgling, oozing unholy impulses that like the very temptresses of Hell will only lead it to misery and hollowness?! Yes, now I think I would be perfectly comfortable in a nunnery -- I have all the proper zealous hatred of all things human. What has turned Kwizzy from a free-love hippie with infinite faith in humanity to a screaming, raging angel of darkness whose only thought is punishment of the masses -- those masses made of useless meat that understands itself less than a grain of sand understands its place in the corner of the room as dust, nothing? What has given Kwizzy demonic delight in the eternal truth that those who seek their selfish, hollow, useless desires will find exactly what they look for -- misery wrapped in a shroud of freedom and pleasure?
Superbad.
Yes, she should have known better.
Of course I got the true "point," -- don't patronize me like I'm some sort of frightened sheep -- worried at the mere mention of anatomy or an f-bomb! I fear no such things, and neither can they blind me! "The point," as it were, was the usual "coming of age" ideal of realizing what is important in life, yada, yada, blah blah blah. I even had the taste, or sense of irony, to notice how the story foreshadows itself, paces quite well, evolves, and comes to what could be called a sweet denouement. However, this film has the same paradoxical punishment of the audience as those Holocaust survivor films do: they show you humanity is a wretched pile of worthless hatred and cruelty, born only to watch pleasant feelings -- joy, love, laughter -- dangled in its face, tantalizing, while other men beat it savagely -- marking pain as the primary sensation of this world; humankind is a beast, long-suffering in the worst sense, taunted, jabbed, beaten, slapped, humiliated -- that is all it truly knows, and all it can truly give. Yet, somehow, a shining light -- a hollow insult, a slap to the face -- trying to tell us that there is hope, love, and truth within the dark prisons of humanity's worthlessness. Yes, we're supposed to feel good about this. We're supposed to hope.
No! NO! You're telling me the point of Superbad was somehow this enlightenment, this hope, this idea that perhaps we are not worthless -- when it was telling me overwhelmingly otherwise -- NO! Silence, fool! Shut your worthless maw, and if there is any kind of goodness in this world, any sort of hope, you will be know the contradiction -- the contradiction enveloped in the despair you so willingly plant in our hearts and minds, drowning in a murky pit of hatred -- all you showed us, all the protective, tender flesh of hope you peeled back to reveal the blackened bone of emptiness every one of us has waiting for us. No, I will not hope. Hope is too tender, too quiet, too soft, too weak to possibly overcome the outburst, the despair, the desperation, the kind of rage that blinds all reason and wishes upon itself pain and prays that it will bring pain to others.
I despise people. I despise their naivete, their desire, their impulses, their selfishness, their uselessness, their hollow struggles. I despise them. Their enlightenment means nothing to me -- only their destruction. Why? So they will at last cease to torture me with their constant, belligerent worthlessness! Pitiful wretches who would not know anything were it not for the searing whips of knowledge, of pain, of experience! Even then they will not heed! NO! They scream and wail about their burnt flesh, their bloody skin, and like an untrainable beast, crying out for the pain to end -- doing nothing, nothing, to stop it. Why can't the beast stop the pain, the brimstone lash? Circumstance? No, the beast is simply too foolish, too naive, too stupid to understand the pain, where it is coming from, or how to stop it. The beast is even too low to use the knowledge it gains through this pain. It just continues on its way, marked by experience, scarred by knowledge, and yet completely oblivious of all of it. This beast will live and die in pain, and it will not even appreciate it! What's the point then?! Ha ha, that is precisely the point -- there is none! At the state when not even pain can be appreciated, there is no point to anything anymore!
What all of this spilling venom of hatred of Biblical proportions meant is that I didn't just dislike Superbad. I despised it. But I am no hypocrite -- no! I will not simply cry out in pain, confused, and learn nothing from it like the poor beast -- no! I cradle my searing wound, I caress it, feel as acutely as I can the angry pulse of my torn soul, bleeding, screaming, weeping. There is a kind of euphoria in such anger, such madness, such submersion in agony. All "negative" feelings are agony, are they not? From this, I gain something. A scar? Silly silly, why would I let something so divinely excruciating heal? The despair, the hatred, the anger, the sorrow -- surely this blow has opened many, much smaller wounds -- and now they dance together! The great, new, fresh, wonderful wound -- and all its smaller brothers and sisters! A waltz, a jig, many tiny minuets, a veritable ballet of pain! It's... glorious.
Yes... See Superbad. Join me! Join me in the agony! Revel in the destruction of all your purity, all your hope, all those pitiful lies! Join me!
Should have insisted we play Rock Band, but no, I let myself be subjected to the movie that has single-handedly killed any desire I might have once had for anything sexual. One can only take something one enjoys and watch monkeys insult it for so long before the taste for it is completely diminished. It also killed my faith in humanity, though Michael Sera may live.
Why?! Why is humanity a festering pustule of stupidity -- pulsing, gurgling, oozing unholy impulses that like the very temptresses of Hell will only lead it to misery and hollowness?! Yes, now I think I would be perfectly comfortable in a nunnery -- I have all the proper zealous hatred of all things human. What has turned Kwizzy from a free-love hippie with infinite faith in humanity to a screaming, raging angel of darkness whose only thought is punishment of the masses -- those masses made of useless meat that understands itself less than a grain of sand understands its place in the corner of the room as dust, nothing? What has given Kwizzy demonic delight in the eternal truth that those who seek their selfish, hollow, useless desires will find exactly what they look for -- misery wrapped in a shroud of freedom and pleasure?
Superbad.
Yes, she should have known better.
Of course I got the true "point," -- don't patronize me like I'm some sort of frightened sheep -- worried at the mere mention of anatomy or an f-bomb! I fear no such things, and neither can they blind me! "The point," as it were, was the usual "coming of age" ideal of realizing what is important in life, yada, yada, blah blah blah. I even had the taste, or sense of irony, to notice how the story foreshadows itself, paces quite well, evolves, and comes to what could be called a sweet denouement. However, this film has the same paradoxical punishment of the audience as those Holocaust survivor films do: they show you humanity is a wretched pile of worthless hatred and cruelty, born only to watch pleasant feelings -- joy, love, laughter -- dangled in its face, tantalizing, while other men beat it savagely -- marking pain as the primary sensation of this world; humankind is a beast, long-suffering in the worst sense, taunted, jabbed, beaten, slapped, humiliated -- that is all it truly knows, and all it can truly give. Yet, somehow, a shining light -- a hollow insult, a slap to the face -- trying to tell us that there is hope, love, and truth within the dark prisons of humanity's worthlessness. Yes, we're supposed to feel good about this. We're supposed to hope.
No! NO! You're telling me the point of Superbad was somehow this enlightenment, this hope, this idea that perhaps we are not worthless -- when it was telling me overwhelmingly otherwise -- NO! Silence, fool! Shut your worthless maw, and if there is any kind of goodness in this world, any sort of hope, you will be know the contradiction -- the contradiction enveloped in the despair you so willingly plant in our hearts and minds, drowning in a murky pit of hatred -- all you showed us, all the protective, tender flesh of hope you peeled back to reveal the blackened bone of emptiness every one of us has waiting for us. No, I will not hope. Hope is too tender, too quiet, too soft, too weak to possibly overcome the outburst, the despair, the desperation, the kind of rage that blinds all reason and wishes upon itself pain and prays that it will bring pain to others.
I despise people. I despise their naivete, their desire, their impulses, their selfishness, their uselessness, their hollow struggles. I despise them. Their enlightenment means nothing to me -- only their destruction. Why? So they will at last cease to torture me with their constant, belligerent worthlessness! Pitiful wretches who would not know anything were it not for the searing whips of knowledge, of pain, of experience! Even then they will not heed! NO! They scream and wail about their burnt flesh, their bloody skin, and like an untrainable beast, crying out for the pain to end -- doing nothing, nothing, to stop it. Why can't the beast stop the pain, the brimstone lash? Circumstance? No, the beast is simply too foolish, too naive, too stupid to understand the pain, where it is coming from, or how to stop it. The beast is even too low to use the knowledge it gains through this pain. It just continues on its way, marked by experience, scarred by knowledge, and yet completely oblivious of all of it. This beast will live and die in pain, and it will not even appreciate it! What's the point then?! Ha ha, that is precisely the point -- there is none! At the state when not even pain can be appreciated, there is no point to anything anymore!
What all of this spilling venom of hatred of Biblical proportions meant is that I didn't just dislike Superbad. I despised it. But I am no hypocrite -- no! I will not simply cry out in pain, confused, and learn nothing from it like the poor beast -- no! I cradle my searing wound, I caress it, feel as acutely as I can the angry pulse of my torn soul, bleeding, screaming, weeping. There is a kind of euphoria in such anger, such madness, such submersion in agony. All "negative" feelings are agony, are they not? From this, I gain something. A scar? Silly silly, why would I let something so divinely excruciating heal? The despair, the hatred, the anger, the sorrow -- surely this blow has opened many, much smaller wounds -- and now they dance together! The great, new, fresh, wonderful wound -- and all its smaller brothers and sisters! A waltz, a jig, many tiny minuets, a veritable ballet of pain! It's... glorious.
Yes... See Superbad. Join me! Join me in the agony! Revel in the destruction of all your purity, all your hope, all those pitiful lies! Join me!
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