Keeping Me Waiting

These are the good old days, at least according to Carly Simon. Focusing on the present has never been a particularly easy task for me, especially when the promise of some potentially wonderful gaming experience is on the horizon.

For 12 years, Diablo 3 was on the horizon. It may not have been at the forefront of many minds until 2008 when the official announcement of its existence was made, but as assumptions go, the creation of another entry in the popular series was a safe one. 2008 wasn’t exactly yesterday though, and back then I felt rather confident in my snarky declaration  that I looked forward to playing the game in 2013  (not bad, I was only a year off).

When the game was finally released on the 15th of May, I like to think that a question raced across the minds of the millions of players who had picked up the game. Assuming they weren’t just lost in demon-slaying euphoria, that is. The question I like to imagine is “was this worth the wait?” It’s a question that tends to generate a lot of snap answers, either in the positive or negative. If you peruse the Diablo 3 forums (and why would you do that unless you want to feel depressed about humanity?), you will see the answer trends towards the negative  response. “D3 didn’t deliver, this isn’t like D2, it’s for casuals, it’s too hard, it’s not dark enough, we were promised sandwiches”. Let us disregard the vocal forum kids for a second though and consider the opinion of someone who might take longer than three seconds to form their argument. Consider someone who was in high school when D2 was released in 2000. We’ll say they were 16, for sake of ease. Now imagine them 12 years later, pushing 30 and undoubtedly in a very different position in life. Is it possible to make an honest comparative evaluation when the temporal gap between the products is so vast?

I would argue that such a comparison is impossible, because if you were 16 then and 28 now, I’m willing to bet the things that make you happy then and now have changed. The multi-hour gaming binges that are the trademark of the teenage years are by and large a thing of the past as your 20s progress. You’re probably not going to LAN parties, and there might even be a small child you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on while you battle the forces of Hell (and don’t look now but he’s trying to lick the electrical outlet). Can you honestly say that your enjoyment of D2 sprang entirely from the game itself, or was it that you could play all night and not worry about credit card debt, mortgages or student loan repayments? It didn’t matter if you were playing a PC game all the time instead of going out with friends because you had university or college to look forward to and that’s where all the really exciting stuff is supposed to happen anyway. Of course D2 seemed like the greatest game ever, it was a huge jump from the original game in every conceivable way. Maybe most importantly, you probably didn’t waste time reading the rantings of detractors, because why would you? There were Baal runs to do and cow levels to clear. I apologize to anyone reading who didn’t play the game as that last sentence will make absolutely zero sense to you.

If Diablo 2 was your teenage love, then D3 isn’t going to make your heart beat fast in your chest. You’ve grown up a bit, and D3 in a lot of ways is still the same. That’s not a negative connotation, but it does mean the effect it had on you won’t be the same. You might feel a sense of familiarity, maybe even of comfort. ” I remember this feeling of gratification” you’ll think, and perhaps you’ll smile. But if it isn’t infatuation, if it isn’t lust, if it isn’t all night and the next day and damn the consequences…well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It certainly isn’t a knock against the game. It’s just a reminder of a silly concept, that being the longer you wait for something, the more time you have to forget why you wanted it in the first place.

Drunk on Possibility

Possibility is intoxicating. Recall the Obama campaign of 2008, when many people believed that the new kid in town was going to turn his country around from a troubled path. Think of how you feel when you buy a lottery ticket. Remember the last time you told someone you cared about them, in the hopes of hearing it back. Did you genuinely believe in a positive resolution to any of these outcomes at the time, or was it just the attraction of the “what if?”

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in recent weeks wondering about whether delusion is such a terrible thing. It would seem that so much of our happiness is based around potential, not the reality of our lives. You work hard today to have a better future, or at least that’s the story we heard growing up. Rewards are always just on the horizon, and when they get here…boy that’s going to be something worth waiting for.

Then again, maybe it won’t be, and you’ll experience that all-too familiar feeling of disappointment before moving on to the next promise, the next maybe, the next bit of potential.

And at times, that seems more than a little sick. More than a little damaging to your long-term happiness. But most of all, it seems like we have an obsession with the possible that I have no idea how to cure.

A Brief Review of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

It has become something of an epidemic within the schoolyard, the contagious inability to focus on tasks, requiring vats of pills to be put down children’s throats so little Will or Jennifer can put all their attention on the difficult task of arts and crafts.

It makes you wonder how a movie like Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy ever gets made. Imagine the sweaty sales pitch that had to be given to some bored executive. “We have a movie based on a John Le Carre novel that features no American actors, very few action scenes and and facial expressions as the main method of expression.” Best of luck selling that to the Ritalin-popping masses.  How would you hold interest? How  do you keep an audience that is used to constant visual gratification on the edge of their seat?

You do it by hiring some fantastic actors, and then getting them to turn in performances that are captivating. You do it by asking Gary Oldman to remain practically silent for the first 20 minutes of the movie, witnessing his dismissal from the British Intelligence agency he works for, known as The Circus. And when Oldman returns to duty to ferret out a mole (perhaps one too many animals in that line) believed to be giving the Russians state secrets, you cannot wait for him to deliver that first line.

Tinker, Tailor is all the more interesting because instead of modernizing Le Carre’s work and creating a new enemy (easy money on say, Islamic terrorists), the setting remains firmly in the Cold War. This is a time where the Russians were quite out in front for the scariest people on earth award, and they are an ever-present threat in this film, though never openly on a battlefield, but through agents that could be working for or against Britain.

Deception is at the heart of Tinker, Tailor. Characters are mistrustful of each other, especially those in the highest levels of the Circus. No one is above suspicion, and paranoia is not only present, but necessary. The cost to Oldman’s George Smiley is obvious, his marriage is in shambles and he lives a lonely life. Watching Smiley investigate his “trusted” collegues and unravel the mystery of the mole within the agency is to watch a man who desperately needs a focus other than his own life.

A word or two must be said about the clothing within the film. From three-piece suits to camel overcoats to Smiley’s glasses, everything stitch is carefully chosen and thrusts the viewer back a few decades. Everything worn in this film looked very warm, despite the chilly surroundings of foggy London. It was a real treat to see how some of these styles have come around into fashion again, and I can only imagine that there might be an upswing in the sales of Smiley’s frames.

By the time Tinker, Tailor concludes, you’ll probably have had more than a few guesses as to who the mole is. Whether or not you’re correct, you’ll get to enjoy some truly impressive performances and a story that is subtle yet compelling. It’s a film that asks that you pay careful attention, and rewards you richly when you make that commitment.

There’s Nothing New About This Year

2012 is here, whether we wanted it or not. Time to make all those promises to yourself about eating right and exercising more often. Those lovely lies will be all but forgotten by March, but for now, let us enjoy our collective illusion of this being a time for renewal and fresh starts. Here I am, writing a blog post for the first time in over 4 months, but we’ll spare each other the declarations of my renewed commitment to writing and simply say I have missed doing this, so here we are.

I read a Dilbert comic today in which the titular bespectacled office drone announces that he rejects the notion of arbitrary markers in the space-time continuum, like New Years Eve. This was a particularly interesting notion to me, one which rejects convention and the markers we place in our lives, focusing instead on the fact that as far as existence is concerned, it’s a one act play that (hopefully) runs for a long time. The intermissions are of our own creation, and while you’re out in the lobby scarfing down a Haagen Dazs, the actors are continuing the next scene without you. Maybe that’s too much of a generalization though. Surely some natural act-breaks occur in our lives. The transition from child to adult, or the period in your late 20s when everyone you know seems to be getting married or having kids. Maybe it’s when your own kids bring life into the world and suddenly you’re a grandparent.

Even if these markers are legitimate points in our lives when we can identify change, what is it about a New Year that grants this same status? My 2012 started with an act of complete idiocy on my part. I overdid the festivities at my party last night, and suffered a swift and crushing hangover this morning as a result. What about this activity suggests that I have learned anything in the last year? The opposite appears to be true. Faced with the knowledge that I needed to be a functional human being on Sunday, I cast aside common sense and made sure the cup in my hand stayed full. The hangover that resulted went away in a matter of hours, but it ruined plans I had made for the day, and served as a sharp reminder that you can make all the plans you like, but one mistake will ensure that you will remain couch-bound and mentally trying to will the half-eaten bag of chips away from you, lest you look upon their salty ruination and heave your guts into said bag.

This isn’t meant to be an anti-drinking post, so I hope it hasn’t come off as such. I’ll drink again, though I do see a bit of a vacation from the old hooch in my future. What I won’t do, is write a lifestyle cheque that will inevitably bounce. Change doesn’t happen because we say we’re going to do it. Good intentions are a complete waste of time if they never lead to anything, and all the resolutions in the world won’t lower your cholesterol or get that novel finally started. We need to stop declaring and to start doing. When there has been real progress made, when you are down a size or I’ve got my first 30 pages in a word document, we’ll talk about it.

That’s a promise.

The Kid Tries to Write for A Spell

It has occurred to me more than once in the last couple of years that I spend a lot of the time playing games thinking about something else entirely. World of Warcraft was probably the most frequent example of this. You play that game long enough and eventually it just becomes your chat client with pretty graphics to keep in touch with online friends. Even when I played other games though, this would happen. I’d be hours into the experience and my mind would wander away from being a Renaissance-era assassin or a space marine who sounded suspiciously like Bender and onto what was going on at my job, or with my relationship, or the thousand other topics which occupy our thoughts on a daily basis.

I can’t be certain of this of course, but I am fairly convinced that did not happen once while I played through Bastion. This game is superlative in a way that has restored my faith in the idea that yes, there are games being created that will make you experience that sense of enjoyment you thought you had left behind in childhood. The music is outstanding. The dynamic narration feels like something that needs to be in more games. The world is bright and detailed. You will want to spend real time in it, thinking only about what you are experiencing directly in front of you.

It’s an absolute joy to play. I strongly recommend it, and I’m not going to tell you a single thing about the story. You’ll thank me later.

The Voice Acting Was Still Balls Though

I don’t often give up on entertainment experiences. I’ll read bad books through to the end, I’ll hold on through the dullest movies on the small chance the ending will redeem it all. More often than not, I’ll finish a game even if it isn’t living up to my expectations

This was not the case with Far Cry 2. Despite a considerable amount of interest in the game before it was released, I found myself struggling to deal with some of the issues I would experience when actually playing the final product. I made it through about 40% of the story and back on the shelf it went. A few years later, I remembered some of the aspects I liked about it and decided another attempt was needed. I finished the story mode earlier today. Here’s some final thoughts on it.

1. Great setting – Africa is an underused setting for games. There’s some sticky business when it comes to portraying that part of the world, and if you don’t know why, then have a gander back to the controversy that surrounded Resident Evil 5′s story. Far Cry 2 didn’t generate quite the same response when it arrived, perhaps because it focused more on trying to capture the environmental aspects of Africa. There’s a certain moral ambiguity of most of the characters in FC2, and it has nothing to do with race. People are just generally not very pleasant in this game, which ties into my second point.

2. No Angel – The protagonist is kind of an asshole in FC2. You’re out to exploit an already bad situation, and along the way you’re going to be killing an awful lot of people. Thankfully, these aren’t exactly noble folks you’re eliminating, but there’s still plenty of unsettling moments like driving your machete into the chest of a downed enemy to finish them off. FC2 is not shy about reminding you that is a very dark game.

3. Free Market Weaponry – Though it may be frustrating at first to have only a small amount of weapons available for purchase, FC2 makes you think about how you like to play as a result of this bottle-necking. You won’t have the money to buy a silenced mp5 and RPG right off the bat, so you have to ask yourself if you’re more of a lie-in-wait and ambush guy, or if you’d rather just get to an elevated position and fire a rocket into a convoy of trucks. When you start to gain access to more weapons, your options for tackling combat situations get pushed wide open, and your approach to how you resolve them can vary. I liked having those options.

4. We Jammin’ – I know this one was probably divisive in the FC2 community (if such a thing can be said to exist), but I really liked how weapons could fail mid-fight. There is a certain ennui that arrives midway though FPS games once you figure out the best gun and how to always win fights. FC2 throws these random moments of complete panic at you when your gun jams as you frantically try to blaze away at 3 mercs who are advancing on your position. Picking up merc weapons only made these failures more likely, adding incentive to the purchased weapons. Weapon degradation doesn’t make it into a lot of FPS games, and FC2 made me think it should.

5. Burning Desires – The fire looks great in this game. It spreads quickly in the dry brush and represents as big a danger to you as your foes. You can chuck a Molotov cocktail into a guard outpost and watch as people scatter and ammo cooks off sending rounds in every direction.

6. Gutsy Ending – I didn’t love the ending, but I like that they didn’t just go for a generic conclusion. I found it a little out of character for the protagonist to blindly accept the way things turned out, but again, an effort was made to set it apart from other games, at least a little.

That’s pretty much what I got out of FC2, off the top of my head. I could compile a list of criticisms, but it probably wouldn’t be anything new that wasn’t directed at the game when it launched. I’ll leave it at this, I’m glad I gave the game another chance. Maybe it’s time to give some of the other games in my stack of shame another go.

Wanting and Having

Last night, I had an unusual dream. I don’t remember a lot of the specifics, but I do recall one aspect that stood out – baseball cards. I’m not sure why my subconscious decided to dust off that relic from my childhood. If you grew up in the late 80s/early 90s, you probably remember entire binders full of cards that could be found on countless schoolyards and in the homes of friends with rich parents that you hated so much because they bought that rare Nolan Ryan card for their spoiled child.

Some wounds never really heal. I digress. My own interest in baseball was in full effect in 1991. My cards of choice were the Upper Deck series, and I had a ton of them. I scrapped together every dollar I could for the chance to spend it at my local comic store, which had the packs up high, out of reach of young, eager hands. You had to request the packages from the guy at the cash specifically, and I can’t believe that at 9 years old I was able to do that. That was a testament to how much I was into those cards though, if I could get past my crippling shyness.

Cards were a funny thing. When I look back on my interest in them, I can’t help but think that they were like gambling for children. You put up your four bucks or whatever, had no idea what you were going to open in your pack of ten. It could be someone rare, a favourite player or the worst fate of all – doubles. Oh, and I knew when that happened immediately. I would see Ozzie Smith’s smiling face emerge from my pack and think “You jerk Ozzie, I already have 3 of you.” That feeling though, of opening the package and the 10 reveals…that was like pulling the slot machine arm. Addictive. Insatiable. Occasionally, incredibly rewarding.

So after this odd dream of mine, I dug though a closet and found some slightly dusty but otherwise well preserved baseball cards. It was a nice trip down memory lane, when it took far less to make me happy and excitement cost a grand total of four bucks. It got me wondering though, is there even a market for this stuff anymore? Can I go online and buy a full set of ’91 Upper Decks and make childhood me happy one last time?

Stupid question, of course you can.  But then I got to thinking, would it be “right” to do that? If someone had told me at age 9 that I could have entire 800 card set of cards if I waited a few years for all of $20 (which seems to be the going rate online now), would I have been able to resist and be patient? Of course not. Those cards were about immediate gratification, and rarity created by my own lack of purchasing power. I wanted them because they had to be acquired very sporadically, which made every purchasing experience thrilling. If you had handed me a box of 800 cards at 9, I might have been temporarily thrilled, but they would have ended up abandoned far earlier than my treasured binder did. Back in 1991, the cards I didn’t have mattered just as much as the ones I did.

Something to think about, as I watch people on twitter proclaim their love for Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat, while I look on, empty wallet in hand. Is the wanting ultimately more satisfying than the actual having? Maybe I’ll get some answers when I go to sleep tonight.