Chocolate breasts and Dragunovs

So long story short there I was, walking the Las Vegas Strip at midday, sweating in strange new places and in quantities I didn't think were possible, drinking some peculiar blue drink calling itself a "Hurricane" from a long plastic tube, and wearing sunglasses to hide the fact that I was a deformed freak thanks to a nasty case of conjunctivitis.

I drank vast quantities of alcohol to distract me from the fact that there really isn't much to do in Las Vegas except gamble and vomit, I took antibiotic eye-drops to keep myself from going blind, cough sweets to hold back the feeling that I had swallowed razorblades, and received oral sex from my ex in the changing rooms of a multitude of expensive clothing stores that all looked alike (each featuring a clone of the original effeminate trendy-hair-plastic-grin gay shop assistant) as she dragged both me and my roommate through them all without mercy.

Far Cry 2 felt a bit like that.

Yes, it would have been nice if I hadn't had conjunctivitis. Sure, it would have been great if I had slept the night before, or my ex hadn't insisted on assaulting my wardrobe with such zeal, or I hadn't been mentally undressed by quite so many men in one day...
...but all that being said, I achieved an impressive level of intoxication, I saw the sights, my roommate acquired a vast collection of "hooker cards", and by the time we left I felt utterly destroyed in that wonderful "oh my god yes" post-orgasm-panting sense.

And then there were the little moments of magic; the little understated moments that gave the whole thing an added layer of depth. Like driving through the desert at dawn, mountains silhouetted ominously before the rising sun, evaporite basins there in the distance like ghostly lakes. And the time a waiter flirted with my ex, unaware that I was the one paying. HOW YOU LIKE ONE DOLLAR TIP BITCH!?



So yeah, Far Cry 2 was awesome. Fuck all you people with your “I got bord all u do is shot peepol crisis wos bettar”. Crysis can fuck right off; Far Cry 2 looked like breasts smothered in chocolate and yet was just as smooth and occasionally sticky (don't ask).
Oh, and I hereby present a new award to Far Cry 2:

The Brax Award for the Gratuitous Slaughter of Main Characters

Never before Have I been allowed to kill quite so many of the annoying fucks that give you missions in games.
As for the endings; the entire internet seems to think that they were shit, but you know what? Fuck that too. It was a fantastic ending, presuming you weren't a complete pussy and went with the car battery.

So now I'm playing The Witcher. Just thought I'd put that in bold, since everyone has been pestering me to play it for ages.

I have to ask: Why the hell does Geralt have to keep, like, talking? Shut the fuck up Geralt you albino twat and draw your fucking sword. I swear, every time I see a group of bandits just waiting to be slaughtered by the power of my left mouse button, he starts talking to them, brimming with his "I'm not sure if I'm Jack Bauer or Max Payne" grumbling badassery.

And then when he's done talking? HE STANDS THERE LIKE A COMPLETE FUCKING CRETIN, no sword drawn, taking damage while I hammer the "draw your sword you tit" button. The sword he sheathed so that he could tell them he was going to kill them.



GARAWRAWRRARARARWRAWRAARRGH!!!

It's a hot day.

- Brax

Getting all emotional

Maybe I'm a psychopath, but when I was presented with three Nazi prisoners about to be executed by the Russians in Call of Duty: EXTREME HARDCORE AAWWW YEEEAAH! (World at War), my immediate and unflinching response was to shoot them. Poor Gary Oldman; he's a fantastic act0r, but quite frankly he was taking far too long with all his words and sentences and whatnot. Even as he opened his mouth to speak, I had identified the situation as one that had to be resolved before the general violence could continue. So I shot them. And chuckled a little at the abruptness with which what was clearly meant to be a "dramatic" moment was brought to an end. It reminded me a little of Call of Duty multiplayer; of creeping along, watching your corners, keeping an eye open for snipers, staying low and quiet...
...only to have some little shit with an SMG come bunny-hopping around the corner, spraying you with bullets and utterly destroying your attempts to play soldier "properly".

"Wut iz morraleaty?"

Actually, you know what? Fuck you. I'm not a psychopath. I simply failed to connect to the sequence on an emotional level; I saw the entire scenario through the eyes of someone who knows how to make a skybox in UnrealEd. I saw it as that which it really was; a scripted event designed to regulate the flow of gameplay and ensure that it wasn't all run-shoot-run-shoot-quickload. And given that the run-shoot aspect is WaW's strongest component (and it should be, given that the entire game is essentially a WWII mod for CoD4, which had rock solid gameplay), I really didn't want the flow of such running and shooting and frolicking amid the corpses to be regulated at that moment.
Gary Oldman; I love you, but stfu, seriously. Just shoot someone. And then shout, "I. AM. VEWWY DISAPPOINTED!" like you did in the Fifth Element.

Penumbra, however; now that's a different story entirely. I was really very impressed with Overture and Black Plague; they showed not only a level of polish that is rare in indy games, not only a really interesting combination of the FPS and Survival Horror genres, but most surprising of all; they made me feel something.

"WHOTHEFUCKISTHAT!?!"

For a game that uses the player character's isolation and claustrophobia as its primary weapon, I found the secondary characters to be the most interesting and engaging that I've encountered in quite some time. For the most part, they did nothing; they were voices, or text, or the occasional image. For the most part, their physical presence in the game was manifested merely in terms of the associated scenery; the places they'd been, the things they'd done before you arrived. And yet, I found myself actually giving a shit.

Perhaps it was the isolation that served to emphasise what little non-hostile life there was in the game, or perhaps the writing was simply fantastic (certainly, I'd put a few of Clarence's lines up there with HK47, given his tendency to call you "monkey"). More likely it was a combination of the two, and perhaps this is related to the small development team; a closer relationship between the writing, and the "physical" side of the game.

Dunt look like much, but this had me all emotional

Whatever the case; as much as I laughed at the prisoner-execution in World at War for trying too hard to be dramatic...I found myself quite unexpectedly speechless and rather sad at the conclusion of Red's story in Penumbra: Overture. In a world full of games in which I'd happily set fire to virtual opponents, and then throw their flaming flailing bodies at their friends before jumping up and down a bit on the remains...here was a game in which I actually felt a little shocked by such violence. I think it was the manner in which it was handled, in addition to the writing itself; there was no big cinematic effects-laden spectacle. Just a sad end to a pitiable character.

And in the end, I suspect that the easiest way for a game to trigger emotion in the player...is to not try too hard to tell the player what to feel. The trick is to understate the entire thing; if the player in question is capable of feeling something, they'll be more inclined to feel it with a subtle nudge that sets their imagination on fire, than a big foam hand being thrust in their face with the words "CRY NOW BITCH" written upon the finger.

Of course, another way to make the player emotional is to not let them play the game. The publishers of Dark Athena apparently like losing money; completely fucking up the game's PC release so that at least two online retailers no longer have the game's price listed, while potential buyers are having a hard time finding copies in the shops. I was rather looking forward to playing this, having been a fan of the last game, so I'm getting a tad emotional over the fact that the universe apparently doesn't want me to have it.
An emotional state that is compounded by the fact that I'm still waiting for Far Cry 2 to arrive, despite having been told that the item had shipped last week.

- An Emotional Brax