Fidelity

Ok, Blizzard, cover your ears.........   So.  I've been playing the Rift Betas.

KEEP THEM COVERED.  You know what, BLIZZ?  Just leave the room.  It would be better if you just left.  Yeah...

Ok. Now we can talk.

Needless to say I'm feeling a little guilty.  WoW is a jealous mistress. It's like I'm cheating on Bo Derek with Brooklyn Decker.  Well not Bo Derek NOW.  But you get where I'm going.  There's a new, upgraded version of the hot bikini clad blonde in my life and her accessories are... ample.  Wow is classic.  It is fun.  It is streamlined.  It's what all the kids are playing.  But like dear Bo it's getting a little... OLD.

I SEE YOU PEEKING THROUGH THE CRACK IN THE DOOR, BLIZZ.

Sheesh.   But this here Rift MMO may just give the old ball and chain a run for it's money.  The graphics are not per se a mighty artistic achievement but they somehow feel more adult. More mature.  This of course will not keep any 'Fap to Mudkips' comments out of trade chat, but still.  It somehow seems an improvement.  And the talent trees are definitely deep and flexible.  Sorry Bo.  Having a healing melee class with a pet and the possible potential of tanking in the future shows a lot of options.

However.  This does make me a little nervous that they will be sacrificing multiplayer game difficulty in order to provide an individual player with options.  For example, in WoW  there are basic cookie cutter specs that just work.  If you break too far away from the tree you are going to have fail DPS or Healz or Threat.  By giving people a lot of options, there is a lot more room for error in speccing in Rift.  So.  Do they make encounters easier in order to accommodate diversity, or does it become even MORE complicated to put a well balanced team together for raiding? I don't know.  But I am interested to see how this all plays out.

-AND-

While my little blue shammy troll is ... meh... CUTE?

Brooklyn Decker has some gnarly tats.

Just sayin.

New Elder Scrolls. Yessssssssssss.

Dear Bethesda Software.  Please take all my money.  Drain all funds current and future from all accounts, and in exchange, let me live now and forever in the sweet fantasy paradise that is the world of The Elder Scrolls.  My experience with Oblivion was, to say the least, immersive.  When the game was finally over, I started 2 or 3 new characters which I played 20-30 hours more just to try and sop up a bit of that sweet fantasy crack and mainline it into my cerebrum.  It didn't work, however.  Way to leave 'em wanting more.

This game is right up there with Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid 3 for me.  Indelible.  Inescapable.  Like a lover.  Like a child.  Like a mother.  An experience that at its conclusion leaves you feeling at once sweetly fulfilled and utterly bereft. You see it's face in every stranger's.  At every bus stop billboard.  In the bottom of each cup of coffee.

There is a VR future where you enter this realm Matrix style and live forever in the harsh and unforgiving wilderness, both a fugitive and a hero.  I want to live long enough to see this day.  To incorporate my being fully into the stratum and yield to its sweet succor.  Embrace me, dark yeti.  Make me whole again.  I yearn for your coarse and cruel instruction.

I mean, just look at that picture.

I want to go to there.

Bayonetta

OK.  I loves me some hot avatar action.  Yes, I want to date your avatar.  I want to marry it IRL.  But Bayonetta.... FFS.  Hot pseudo asian chick with glasses whose very weapon is not only her hair but also the only thing she is wearing on her entire body?!?!  Check please.

I tried to play this game.  I tried to judge the design, the controls.  All I find myself doing is desperately seeking that perfect moment when the hair pulls back to reveal the heroine in all her glory.  But it never comes.  (TWSS)

I can't focus on the game itself.  And so I die.  And die.  And die.

I'm passing this review off to Linus.  I can't take it anymore.  I need to go let off some steam...

Braid

Ok, Braid.  We get it.  You are awesome.  You are a gorgeously rendered, masterfully scored work of art breathing new life into the 2d platforming genre as never before.  Time control?  Yes Please!  Saving the princess?  Hallelujah.  She's in another castle?!  You're killing me.  The game is difficult, innovative, rewarding.  In short a gem.

But this ending.  Can we talk about this MindF@#$ of an ending???

Ahem.

You build me up.  You teach me.  You guide me.  You punish and redirect me.  Your love is righteous.  And all the while you promise me that my efforts will be rewarded.  With love.  The sweet and gentle love... of a lady.  The love of my life.   The princess.  I fight and fight, and yearn and yearn.  All for she.  My preciousssssss....

But then!!!

The mallet drops.  My world is shattered.  I am naught but a pawn of my own deluded psyche.  She wants me not.  She yearns not for my touch but for the utter eradication of my presence from her sight, indeed her entire life.  There is another beau that has caught her eye.  A haughty, handsome knight with whom the likes of I could never compete.  My heart is rent asunder.  I am the villain.  The foe.  The creepy guy who jumps on your balcony at night and says, "Surprise!  I'm your stalker!!  Will you MARRY ME?!?!"

Ok, guys.

I get it.

You're artists.  Innovators.  Reinventing something olde and classic in a way that is not only fresh but inspiring.  But let's take a look at your target 'demo'.  This is a gamer's game.  DLC only.  INDIE.  The kinds of people who are going to buy and play and LOOOVE this game are people like myself.  Hardcore.... nerds.  We identify with this character far too much.  I've heard of catharsis, but I don't really want a game that helps me piece together that the reason cute girl in the purple tank top keeps looking at me and moving to the next aisle over in the supermarket is not because she is flirting with me, but because she is doing the exact opposite.  She is fleeing for her life with a cart full of ramen and dismay.  Shame on you genius game developers.  Shame on me for trusting you.  I went from feeling like a guy who thought he had a chance to Captain Creepy.  For shame.

Sexy Toons

Much has been made around the office of my tendency, nay visceral need to create avatars which are A) Female and 2) Sexy.  To some this appears to be a trend toward virtual transvestitism.  These are the same type of people who say things like "You are what you eat.  QED you are an @$$HOLE."  And from this I can only conclude, JAMES, that you dine primarily on a diet of Gay Demon Pie!  Nothing wrong with that choice, just don't pretend you didn't make it.  But I digress.

The benefits of Sexy Female Avatarism are many and rewarding.  First off, baddass chicks kicking evil tail are hot.  See - Kill Bill, Sin City, and The Main Reason People Read Any Comic Books At All.  Second off, the posterior view.  I like video games.  I like killing bad guys.  I like the backside of a woman who is killing bad guys.  It's a three-fer.  Third - Ask any guy if he would be a hot chick for a day and you know what he'll say?  Hell yes.  Do I need to spell out why??  VIP access to the facilities, my friends.  This is why girls own so many mirrors.  I know I would.

So, does this make me a girl?  No.  Does this make me a cross dresser?  Not at all.  Does this make me a loser who doesn't know any girls outside of the workplace even though I keep trying to talk to that bendy Yoga girl at the gym where I don't really work out but really just go to view the buffet of flesh?  Probably. Definitely. Yes.

Help a Shaman Out -or- QQ Moar...

So for the first expansion since Vanilla WoW I decided that when Cata dropped I would spend more time questing and investing time in the game lore before jumping right into the good old dungeon badge grind.  What was great about this decision for me was that I could remain a somewhat casual player while not feeling like I was being shuffled to the periphery of the core game experience as I often felt as a casual raider at the end of WOTLK.  Doubly awesome was Blizzard's bounteous gift of iLVL 329+ Blues available at many of the end chain quest rewards.

Now here I find myself adequately geared to heal heroics on my shammy, and not in the noobtarded 'Oh, look I have leet plate gearz boosting my GS from their resting place in my inventory!' kinda way.  No.  I was ready.  Sound of Blues and sound of mind.  But with very little real group experience in the new expansion.  I am attempting dungeons out for the first time in Heroic mode.  So I am cautious.  I am honest.  I alert my groups saying, 'Hey, This is my first time here.  Please let me know the strats! :)'  My response is typically the compulsory 'K.'

 So I find myself in this exact situation in Abyssal Halls last night.  We're clearing trash.  Everyone is behaving like the unevolved aggro-spamming noobs WOTLK heroics trained us to be.  As many of you probably already know this is a big no-no in Cata.  Much of the player responsibility key to the Vanilla WoW experience has been restored to the game, which is a big win for long time players and a major fail for 12 year olds who bought their accounts on eBay.  Needless to say the tank can't hold aggro.  Dps is running around like LeRoy Jenkins on Speed.  And despite my reduced Mp5 and inability to spam chain heal till the Murlocs come home, I am holding this group together.  I am carrying the team.  Go me.  Not to be cocky but my epeen is huge.

We approach a dragon boss.  I ask for the strat.  I get, 'don't stand in shit'.  Easy enough.  I don't stand in shit.  But within seconds it's obvious that there is way more to this encounter than the traditional GTFO fire strat.  I die.  I start getting flamed in party for wiping the group.  I say, 'Why didn't you explain the strat to me?'  The Group Leader responds, 'Learn the Strat in regulars.  You are retarded.'  I am booted from the group.

You may say, 'Ryan, QQ moar.'  And you're right.  Maybe I should have at least researched the fights.  I certainly have been booted from groups for more bizarre reasons.  I guess what really got me about this one was that not only was I carrying the group, which they obviously were too noobish to realize, and not only was I kicked without having a chance to defend myself, but the group was in full knowledge that I would not be able to survive the fight without knowledge of the boss's abilities.  Not only that but Q times are not exactly swift these days.  Unless one of the group had a nice healing offspec, which I grant is highly possible, they would have had to sit around and wait for some random for 8-15 minutes.  They sacrificed a geared and more than capable player for a mere chance at having someone join the group who doesn't need an explanation.  What takes more time?  Wiping on a boss with Rtards who know the strat but can't watch Omen, or taking 5 minutes to explain a fight to a nearly best scenario random healer who will carry your fail group to the end of the instance?  Let the Valor points rain down.

I guess my concern is this - how did people get so impatient that they don't even realize they are wasting their own time and energy merely to spite people who pose a momentary inconvenience?  It's a game.  We're all here to have fun and help each other out.  We all want epic drops, but when you drop an epic healer the only loot anyone acquires is BoE Frustration and Dismay.  And you don't want to equip that shit.  It becomes Soulbound.

Also - don't Ninja my time and I won't Troll your Forum of Fail.

Ok.  I'm done QQing.  For now.... *sniff*