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A List of Games Attempted: March & April 2021

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Herein is a list of games I tried or am trying, and had thoughts upon, despite not beating them - if they can be beaten at all.  Bravely Default II I prepared myself by playing Bravely Second, the direct sequel to the first game, and turns out - that might have burned a degree of my interest in this one! This one wipes the slate clean of the previous lore, starting fresh in a world of, well, crystals and magic and Asterisks, those physical embodiments of job classes. And it leans much more directly into Asterisks, making them a key plot point, rather than a loose conceit to explain how your character learned how to do the black mage job.  The presentation is kinda remarkable. I wasn't amazed by the demo, but once you sink into it, it really looks & feels like a moving storybook, with lush backgrounds and itty bitty cutie characters. Yet those characters, with their hackneyed personalities, and the things they do in the motion of the plot, all of that is boilerplate. There'...
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Rising Order of Operations, Part IIB: an explication of Call of Duty 2019 & 2020

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Last time, I prepared you for what I thought, showing the history of the FPS' evolution as a genre which emulated the even plane of sport, and how 2007's Call of Duty added an RPG-like progression system that changed all of it. Now, let us speak on the two most recent games, and how they are both more and less than a clicker game for your phone. Is that too revealing? Oh well. --- It is helpful to think of Call of Duty not as a game, but as a platform. And then, forget thinking about it like a platform, because that's insane corporate blather, and instead - consider it like a casino. If you're just playing Warzone, the battle royale mode, it's free, but if you want the rest of the business, it'll cost you a cool $60. That's a standard price for a game, and it rarely goes on sale, but there's so much in there! Right? With your $60, you're welcomed into the grinder. Every action in campaign, in MP, and in Zombies, in Warzone, all of it grants you XP, ...
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Rising Order of Operations, Part IIA: a primer on the FPS, its evolution, and my sordid Call of Duty career

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Last time, we discussed Universal Paperclips , a minimalist idle/clicker game for browser & phones. Now, let's talk about not entirely, but also sorta, different. And first, a primer before the explication. --- The lineage of the first person shooter genre begins, as all great things do, in hell. Sure, there was shooting, and there was being a first person - which is to say, inhabiting a digital body and seeing as it sees, moving as it moves - but DOOM made it visceral and immediate. Much has been said on the topic (see Tim Rogers & other DOOM YTers ), but still it must be said - DOOM made the shooter into a country, and we've lived there for decades now.  From Quake to Unreal Tournament to Goldeneye to Medal of Honor to Halo to Far Cry, we became dudes who did the shooty, and it was good. We could journey through a hackneyed plot on our own, or go onto that world wide web and destroy each other, or knock shoulders with our brothers as we fought for the sniper rifle....
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A List of Games Attempted: Feburary 2021

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Herein is a list of games I tried or am trying, and had thoughts upon, despite not beating them - if they can be beaten at all.  Hitman 3 (PS4) Ah, Hitman. Since 2016, IO Interactive has been expanding their WORLD OF ASSASSINATION, a stupid name for a magical platform for levels, leveling up, and being a bald ass goofball who is also an apex predator of the murder world. I've played every Hitman in bits and bobs since its first release in the, what, late 90s? I recall a conversation with a friend who liked the game (but a friend who would not be a friend for much longer as puberty's demands for popularity rather than, uh, talking about PC games) despite its flaws, and how PC Gamer gave it a C, which is good! It's a good score! It tried to do what it did, and sorta did it. Looking back, nooooo it didn't. I think there was some moral outcry about the game, since it is about murder, but also they then went on to make 2, Contracts, Blood Money, and Absolution. I have fond m...
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Rising Order of Operations, Part I: first, an explication of Universal Paperclips

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During a year of semi-quarantine, as death worked its way up the throats of half a million Americans, I paid more attention to my fingernails. It was strange - they seemed to be growing faster, thicker. I didn't know why, and it bothered me. I've never had long fingernails. I've always kept them short, by biting them. It's a nasty habit, the kind of thing one doesn't admit, but you know, I have done it and do it, and have always done it, since I was a kid. I didn't like the feeling of using nail clippers on my fingers, as holding the tool and pressing down immediately recalls the vision of a nail being cut too short, blood rising in a ring along the cuticle. I don't know if this happened to me, or if it was some image I saw, but I can feel it: the tension along the finger's tip, then the irking pain - not a great one, a grand agony, but a simple, everyday pain. A common experience.  And here I was, couch-bound and screen-tied, month after month, watching...
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