Of Souls and Struggles

Sorry for the extremely long departure from blogging. I know all one of you lost sleep over where I had went.

My time was completely devoured by gigantic project after gigantic project. Nonetheless, I escape to the other side with more to talk about. My recent battles with deadlines and overall work to do have left me with less time to the things I really love doing. For one, playing video games.

I'm usually fairly on top of all new releases that I am interested in. In normal times midnight releases, and two day play sessions of titles I was excited about were common. Times have changed however, there sits a stack of five games I have yet to beat. Some more than a month or two old.

The severity of this seemingly minute detail hit me like a sack of bricks. Gone are the days of full days where I had no obligations. When all I had to worry about was traveling to the kitchen to feed myself in between sessions of an engrossing game. I am left with less time to pack time into games that do not interest me. In order to truly enjoy the time I have with games today the experience must be comprised of pure distilled awesome.

When you only have an hour to play, you don't want to half-assedly play a game you don't care about. The other day I found myself with about three hours of pure free-time. A rare commodity. With something akin to childlike glee I approached my stack of new games.

What to do, what to do. Catherine was a fun game, not extremely deep, but fun. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a game I had a love hate relationship with, today it was still hate - I moved on. I remembered enjoying the first Gears of War so much that purchasing the third installment of the title was a no brainer, yet here I am only two chapters completed in the story with no interest remaining. If only there was something to look forward to. Something deep, involving, challenging, and beautifully well crafted. If only...oh wait. That's right.





The first blog entry I ever wrote was about Demons Souls - the spiritual predecessor of Dark Souls.

When I speak of a world that punishes both the evil and the good that inhabit it - I am most likely describing a world much like that of Demons Souls.

Some may view the video above as something that would put them off of a title. However, when I see the words - Prepare To Die - flash brazenly across the screen I cannot help but become excited. Demons Souls does not accept you into its world with open arms. You are weak, alone, and in constant mortal peril. Nearly every human, animal, or twisted demon wants nothing but to stop your heart from beating - and they will succeed.

Castle battlements are riddled with holes for you to plunge through, arrows snap out of traps placed in walls or floors, monumental stone boulders tumble down staircases, the very ground beneath your feet poisons you, and you cannot pause. You can only afford yourself a moment to breathe after coming out alive on the other side of a grueling fight.

Any moment you spend not taking this game seriously will punish you. You will learn your place it says as you laugh at the tiny rat creeping toward you. You will learn to use caution it says as the tiny rat leaps upon your character and digs its fangs in. You will learn to start ALLLL THE WAY THE FUCK OVER it laughs as that goddamn rat has just infected you with a horrible plague. You scramble through your inventory drinking potions and eating entire flowers whole trying to stop the slow decay of your flesh. Nothing works, you don't have the right item. You panic and sprint towards what you believe to be the end of the stage. The smell of your decomposing skin is the least of your worries as you sprint across a rickety rope bridge into the waiting arms of some mutated monstrosity with a club the size of a street sign. You cry out and raise your shield. The blow is devastating. You can nearly imagine all of the bones in your right arm crunching, the club shows no regard for your carefully looted armor. You cartwheel over the edge of the bridge and plunge to your death amid the bones of other fools.

Start over.



As you travel through the worlds of these two games you collect souls from fallen enemies. You use these to augment your own soul, thus making your stronger. They are integral for you to progress and when you die, you lose them all. You can pick some up if you can fight your way back to where you met your demise. Sometimes this is not possible and they are simply gone.

I miss these aspects of older games. How would you rise after a knight the size of a skyscraper steps on you? You wouldn't, you're dead holmes.

Now I am filled tense excitement, even if I only have an hour to play, Dark Souls will bring its A game. I can't wait.

The punishing aspect of this game is what makes the experience what it is. Every environment is tailor made to fill you with despair - but afford just enough hope to keep you trudging on.

There are few feelings like hacking your way through a stage and reaching the Arch Demon guarding the way to the next area. You give yourself five minutes to compose yourself. Are all of your current armor choices the best? Is there something you can equip or use that may give you an advantage? Do I have to? Do I really have to go in there?

Yes. Yes you do, and more often than not you'll be greeted by something close to this.



And then you're gonna die again and have to re-do everything.

This is serious business, and if you manage to come out on top against one of the bosses you feel like a certified badass.

All the while, as you drag your battered and broken body through whatever horror filled landscape you are trapped in, other players are able to leave spectral messages on the ground that you can read. Nothing fills you with dread like walking up to a huge door and seeing some sort of red arcane text emblazoning the ground. You approach and the only thing it says is, "Good Luck." Wonderful. What you are saying is that the likelihood of this next room being filled with treasure and hugs is pretty low, am I right?

Not only that, it is possible for players that have died to invade your dimension in search of your physical form. You may be mid battle with some horrible fire vomiting demon when the words "A Black Phantom Has Entered Your World" appear forbiddingly across your screen. At this point the invading player enters the beginning of your stage. You have time to choose where you will meet in combat, so the defending player has a small advantage. You steel yourself as a smokey red ghost creeps toward you bearing a giant great sword.

At this point it becomes a battle of keeping your cool. The first player who makes a mistake will most likely be instantly killed. If the invading player wins, you die and lose your body - becoming a spirit. He returns to life in his own world, back in peak physical form.

I could go on for hours, but this game has been on my mind for months now.

State of the game

I'm a nerd. A really big nerd.

Ever since I can remember I have taken a shine to things that get you pushed over in the hallways of middle school. Books, video games, not playing football, you name it I was all about it.

It's strange to think that the most formative years of my life were spent on a little game called Everquest. Now now, I can feel you snicker from here, let's not be hasty. High school is a scary place, mostly for one reason. At that age, I cared about how people viewed me. I believe it is safe to say that most people care about their reputations in the social murder pens of high school.

I had friends, I spent most of my time with the "stoner" kids (as many of them were friends from my previous school). I didn't really have anything in common with them at the time, it was just a place where I could duck down and not be noticed. I played soccer every year, and was generally a nice guy. However, come the weekend I would get invited to a party at so and so's house and would always say that I'd be there - with no intention of actually going.

Something about standing around a house watching people drink didn't appeal to me. I'm not sure what it was, oh wait yeah I do. It was fucking boring. OMGz Stephany is totally having a party at her place cuz her parentz are out of town! Oh boy! Count me in! I can't wait to watch douchebags in wife-beaters drink Coor's and attempt to hit some skanky popular girl ass.

So no, I did not go. I stayed home. I sat alone in my computer room with the lights dimmed, a 12 pack of Coke, and had some of the best years of my life.

It sounds ridiculous, I know. Believe me, I'm sure I was the poster child of the falsities of video game addiction and social malaise, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth.

While you were pretending to like Miller Lite and hoping someone would ask you to prom I was discovering who I was, and making some of the longest lasting friendships I will ever have. Not to mention killing gods.



I'm not belittling how you spent high-school. I'm sure it was great. The point I'm trying to make is that I wish everyone was self aware enough at that age to be who they actually were. I was ridiculed, pushed around, made fun of, and roughed up. It was really bad my freshman year of high school, but eventually I realized in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. Not one fucking bit. Why? I had somewhere safe to go, an entire world where people like that didn't exist.

Sure, some of my fondest memories take place in a world that was not real. The experiences, however, were real. Not to mention the friendships I created while spending time in Norrath. I met one of my best friends on EQ about 12 years ago, and we still have not met in person. Yet we talk every day and still play games on a daily basis.

Neither am I condoning spending all of your time indoors, everyone needs to be healthy. I do not advocate spending your entire life indoors, the real world has plenty to offer in the way of adventure. Though, if you do not feel called towards such things, don't fake it. Let the geek flag fly, you'll be better off for it.

I did not mean for this to turn into a public service announcement, but it seems to have taken a turn in that direction. I'm also becoming so overwhelmingly nostalgic that I had to start playing Limp Bizkit in the background. That's some old school shit.

The point is, the gaming world was once a safe haven for people like me. Nearly everyone you played with was like you - you had something in common. A kindred spirit perhaps. I know there are still people out there who remember how to properly clear a beach head in The Plane of Fear, who know how hard it was to finish your Epic quests, and who used to stay awake till the sun crept over the horizon while they were shopping in The Bazaar.

They were good times, times that could not last forever. For all good things come to an end, and the sanctity of video games is one of those things. You cry out, why! What has changed?

It's really quite simple. The great portcullis that separated our world from the mundane was ripped asunder. You stormed our streets and razed our carefully built towers. Our peace was shattered, you made our world your own. Since then we have had to eke out and existence among the rocks and charred remains of our world.

The very people who used to point at us and declare us losers now share our virtual space. You raid with us, collect gear with us, and inhabit our guilds. You corrupt, twist, break, and destroy a world we held as sacred.

No one is truly to blame, but I like to place the burden upon Halo. Thanks Master Chief, I'm super glad that now when I log onto Xbox live to play a game there is a 99% chance some shitcock frat boy is on the other end of a sniper rifle calling me a queer.

Whatever, fine. You can have the First Person Shooters - they aren't really my bag anyways, but no - you wanted more. You were not content with your testosterone filled gunfights. More always more. Now the hallowed ground of the MMO has become your territory as well. You may not admit it in public, but many of you invaded at the advent of World of Warcraft - the great harbinger of doom for massively multiplayer games.

What changed, why has gaming become so mainstream? Don't get me wrong, I'm elated to see an industry I am so in tune with blossom and grow. I love that new blood is being introduced, but with every transfusion there are some cells bent only on destruction.

Games became easy. Pure and simple. When I started Everquest at the precocious age of 11 there was no forgiveness in the virtual realm. Death carried a penalty. Hours of work spent on leveling your character were lost. I reached the maximum level of EQ not days, weeks or months after I started - but YEARS. The character I had crafted had become an extension of myself, and I still answer to his name to this day when talking to old friends who knew me then.

I have not played EQ since I was about 18, but it still sticks with me as a golden age. The game was hard, people were afraid of it, and to succeed you needed devoted friends who would help you. Time was the chief resource needed to succeed in this world, and I was committed.

Enter present day gaming, what does dying in a game like WoW cause? Nothing. You lose the tiniest fraction of in game currency repairing your gear. How terrifying. Now anyone with two usable hands can wander around being a dick bag with no fear of reprisal.

The advent of Player vs. Player in the online world also changed things. Now, not only can said dick bag generally do whatever he pleases - but he can now kill you, sit on your body, and murder you over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER until he gets bored. Wonderful. Now we can't escape being bullied in a virtual environment. Good.

I'd like to quote the gentlemen of Penny Arcade when I say - normal person + internet anonymity = fucking tool. Every shithead in the world now knows they have a microphone where they can spout whatever the fuck they want into cyberspace and feel like a tough guy. Respect (which was even sometimes hard to find in the golden years) has all but died out.

This is not so much a rant as it is a lament. A dirge I hum under my breath every time some prick spams a general chat channel with whatever garbage is rolling around in his or her excuse for a brain. Courtesy and respect are things of the past. Today, we trade in the currency of bravado and cruelty. The bigger the asshole you are, the more powerful you become. Those who stop to help those in need are trampled into the dirt by the power hungry masses. There is no time to aid others, only yourself. Go ahead, steal that item off of the boss you and twenty other people you don't know just spent an hour killing. You won't ever see them again right? It's just a stupid game right? Right?

We need to reclaim the ways of the past. The worlds we spend our time relaxing in need to be made safe once more. This is why I am here. One way or another I will create a place that tries to minimize the corrupt and rewards the honorable. A place where those seeking the easy path filled with lying, cheating, and stealing will not be comfortable.

A place that punishes. Not only the unjust, but the just. Life is not easy, life is a struggle. Overcoming trouble is one of the most satisfying things a person can do. Those with steadfast friends, and who are willing to band together for each other will succeed. The maverick douche bags of present day will weep when they can't blaze through content in under a week.

Will it sell? Probably not. As a race we enjoy being spoon fed, but as I write this I know there are many of you out there like me. People who enjoy the camaraderie, people who still talk to their so called "fake internet" friends. People who remember the friends that took you on your first raid. Who let you into your first guild meeting. Who passed on that new piece of gear just because they knew you needed it more than they. Who sat with you for hours every single day to make sure you got the item you needed.

These are the people I miss the most. In recent days they have become rare, some of them even jaded and twisted to fit into the current state of mind. They have started playing the "game".

There are those of us who remember. Those of us who know that it wasn't about "playing a computer game". It was about forging relationships through hardship and toil. About being part of something that we all loved and that we could share with each other. About exploring distant worlds with people you trusted with your life. It was wonderful, and sadly it is over. I know I will never reclaim that same feeling, but if I can draw those emotions out of one person with the games I will make then I will know I lived my life well.

This all got serious quickly. Next time I'll try not to wax philosophic and stick to something more humorous, but this seemed important at the time.

Tree of Life

If you somehow stumbled upon this blog and are expecting another glowing review of Tree of Life you are about to be disappointed. Actually, you are about to be disappointed and then enraged off as I literally rip this movie apart. So, straighten your beret, brush the dust off your hip, skin tight black shirt (that is probably one size smaller than it should be), and get out while you still can.

Let's begin.




Before we get into my "analysis" of the film I want to begin with how I became aware of it. I was sitting in a movie (I do not know which) with my girlfriend when it came time for the trailers. I love trailers. I get to see what's on deck, and in some cases get the hype gland pumping over something I cannot wait to see. This time however, I was greeted with The Tree of Life. At the end of the trailer I had no idea what I had just witnessed, I couldn't form a plot - I just knew that it looked interesting and hey it had Brad Pitt in it, he isn't bad. My girlfriend looked over and nudged me, nodding slightly - the preview had passed through her judgement filter and a positive result had occurred. I let out a small sigh, there would be no escaping it now - oh well. I'm sure it will end up being good.

Wrong.

Fast forward to present day - to be accurate about a few weeks ago. My roommates, my girlfriend, and I were all trying to decide on a movie to go see. The Hangover 2 was a possibility, but we decided against it - seeing as it was just a cash grabbing sequel. We had nearly let the idea of going to a movie drop when, to my dismay, I heard the words - "Wait! What about The Tree of Life? I hear the reviews for it are amazing!"

Thus it was decided, we piled into the car, drove to the theater, and were greeted by multiple sold out showings. It was at this point that my roommate and his girlfriend decided to just head home instead of waiting over and hour for the next sold out showing. I was not so lucky however, so, off we wandered to a book store to waste time.

Around 10 o'clock it was time for our showing, so we grabbed our seats in the completely packed viewing area and prepared to be transported to an Oscar worthy film scape where we could let our inner film douchebag loose! Right?



I'm going to warn you. We didn't stay for the whole movie. If there is some radiant resolution that made the experience worth it we were not there for it. We lasted through about half of the film which, in hindsight, was a miracle in itself.

The film opens with a small family reeling from the loss of a child. Sad stuff.

That is the only part of the movie that made sense. The first 10 minutes. Seriously.

From here you are transported through something I can only compare to a fever dream of symbolism and pretentious bullshit.

Anyhow, their son dies. Next you would expect to see their little family suffering and pulling together to make it through such a catastrophic event. Everyone pulls out their tissues and then suddenly.....OPERA MUSIC AND SHOTS OF SPACE. For nearly 15 minutes. Nebulae, stars, planets, and other cosmic formations parade around the screen to some lady warbling in the background.

Alright, fine. I don't know what is going on but hey, it's pretty. I'll deal.

Then it happened. The film cut to a wounded CG dinosaur laying on a beach. Yeah. Let that settle in.

Really? A fucking dinosaur? At this point I began fearing for my sanity. That my last vestiges of mental competency had crumbled, but to my relief someone in the row in front of me snorted in laughter. This was actually happening.

From here we are treated to a scene wherein some younger dinosaurs are playing by a river, suddenly a slightly larger dinosaur approaches. It leaps upon one of the young reptiles and pins it to the ground with its foot. They share a long look, then the bigger dinosaur walks away.

My fingers dig into the fabric of my seat. People around me gasp in understanding. Their eyes tear up. They are fundamentally changed. The bedrock of their minds is shifting. Have they ever actually seen a "movie" before this? Is this the pinnacle of human art? To them, it is. They have seen the very source of human creation and are forever altered.

Next to me my girlfriend begins laughing. She whispers in my ear - "Why did we pay 25$ to watch Planet Earth in a theater?" She is right, the only thing I expect to hear from this point on is Sigourney Weaver discussing the mating habits of these dinosaurs.

Fury wells up from within, I am witness to a film student somehow procuring millions of dollars to show me his senior thesis. I cannot shake the feeling that some dick wearing a stained Nirvana shirt is screaming the word ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT into my face.

The scene shifts to shots of the ocean. There are waves and baby sharks involved. What is going on? Why am I here? My girlfriend barely stifles another laugh - "The Oscar for best actor in a film goes to...The Galaxy! With The Ocean nabbing best supporting actor!"

I look over, my tortured look says it all. Can we please leave. Please? Please? PLEASE? She glances around. "I don't want to be rude...but yeah this is goddamn awful." I grimace and settle back into my seat. By this point the movie has cut back to ACTUAL PEOPLE INSTEAD OF DINOSAURS so maybe it'll find the plot and get rolling.

The mother then starts flying around for no apparent reason. My girlfriend nudges me - "Nope, never mind. I don't care, let's get the fuck out of here." We stand up and begin sliding down our row of seats, breaking line of sight for those we pass in front of. Their scolding looks say it all - "How dare you leave during such a masterpiece of human ingenuity!" Heads turn to regard us with derisive sneers.

I chuckle to myself, because they have no idea what the fuck is going on either.

I do not know how the movie ends, I do not care how it ends. Why? Well, I'll tell you.

This movie is the Big Momma's House of pretentious film. It is a pandering piece of shit that will win Oscars because the director uses a super special film filter that he made at home. Instead of milking money out of the masses of usual movie goers, this film set its sights on the pockets of the upper class snobbery.

I felt insulted. Symbolism is great, but when your entire movie is comprised of ONLY symbolism, and when there are actual PAPERS being written to wade through all of the artsy bullshit to interpret it for people who don't get it - I get angry.

I am not a genius. I am not the next great intellect that the population will look up to for guidance. There will be no gilded statues of me, but I am not an idiot - and making a film to make people feel like idiots makes you a bigger idiot.

Just because you can make social commentary does not make you the aspect-emperor of film creation. It makes you just like every other asshole, you just got lucky.