I’ve always had trouble with transitions.
Going from one thing to the next. I never have mastered the art of moving as one, with a single unified will that decides to do something and does it wholeheartedly
I’m always of many minds. Even when it’s something I know damned well I will enjoy thoroughly, part of me wants to cling to where I am and acts like the mere act of switching activities is the equivalent of a lightning fast commando style kidnapping.
No, don’t drag me, kicking and screaming, away from whatever it is I am doing! Sure, I was ambivalent about it or even downright sick of it two seconds ago but now that it’s go time it is suddenly safe harbour in the nightmare storm that is doing something else.
So even the simplest of things like getting up to pee or to refill my water glass (related) requires overcoming a certain amount of thoughtless and unreasoned resistance.
And if I am having a really bad day, that can take a frustratingly long time. I have damn near wet myself from my inability to decide to get up and take care of business.
Not lately, thank Dog. It takes me a while sometimes, but I usually manage to coax myself into action when the need grows dire.
Still not sure why I end up sitting on the edge of my bed in a kind of stunned stupor for like 20 mins or more, though.
Anyhow, my point, which I am getting to, is that no matter where I go, I am dragging part of me behind me like a ball and chain, or a tired and cranky toddler.
And I am sick of it. It’s ridiculous. I want to be able to move on to the next thing without it being a traumatic fucking event. I don’t want to have to fight myself all the goddamned time. I want to have a unified will.
I want to see moving on to the next thing as going from one good thing to another. Nothing is lost.
I want to be able to let go of the previous vine as I swing to the next instead of getting hung up in between all the frigging time.
It’s the Two Kirks thing again. In order to be definitively decisive, you need strong instincts that you listen to and let propel you forward.
I’ve smothered my instincts in favour of that complex delusion known as “logic” for most of my life. And it has powerful rewards.
But it’s no way to live. Man cannot live by analysis alone.
I need joy and sadness and anger and quietude and sex and love and all the other things that are the stuff of not just life but living.
Of being alive. Of FEELING alive.
I have been the pale ghost of a sputtering hologram for far too long.
I want to quit this stupid game and get back to reality.
Now where’s that fucking ALT-F4?
More after the break.
Flashback : you know, even as a toddler I hated walking. I remember giving my poor babysitter Betty a lot of trouble when she’d walk me the 15 blocks or so to her family’s house and back.
Especially back. Boy did I hate back.
But Betty, being the awesome caretaker she was, was always patient and persistent with me. She even pulled the classic “well OK, then I am leaving without you!” thing when I flat out refused to go on.
To my credit, she got like half a block before I caved and ran to catch up.
I might have terrible taste in video games
At least as compared with the gaming public.
See, the results are in, and amongst the top 20 PC games of the year are such luminaries as Disco Elysium, Wildermyth, and Griftlands.
And the thing is, I’ve tried all of those, and I didn’t like any of them.
I thought Griftlands (#28 game for 2021 at 84 percent on Metacritic) was underwhelming to say the least. There were the bare bones of something worth playing there, but it needed way more fleshing out. The battles were way too repetitive and lacked any true feeling of strategy for me, the graphics were mediocre and basic – pretty much just moving GIFs around – the plot and setting were uninspiring, and the whole thing left me with a deep and profound sense of meh.
That one. I returned.
Wildermyth (#10 game for 2021 at 87 percent on Metacritic) was ultimately more trouble than it was worth. It’s this wildly innovative game which is supposed to let you develop your medieval RPG characters beyond what other games ever dreamed with full, rich lives where they can marry, have kids, grow old, and die.
It even bills itself not as a game but as a “mythmaking engine”. Yeesh.
And I tried to get into it. But it was just too much for me. I confess, the fault lies in me, because it was just too new and different for me. I found myself longing for something reassuringly familiar. I felt profoundly alienated.
So when I got to the first big chapter-ending fight and it seemed completely impossible, my nervous system collapsed and I uninstalled it.
Did not return it though, so I could still try again some day.
But my true blackhearted sin against all that is good and right in video games is in not liking Disco Elysium (#1 game (!) for 2021 at 97 percent (!!!) on Metacritic).
It is the monster juggernaut smash of the year with both critics and fans and absolutely everybody and their dog’s cousin’s paperboy loves it like it donated an organ but me.
And unlike the other two, this one actually really bothers me.
Because WTF am I not getting??
To me, the game was a long pointless slog through a turgid and depressing plot with no point, a convoluted and strangely unrewarding setting, a skill system designed by a self-loathing literary critic, and the overall tone of a very pretentious and dull person’s overstuffed suicide note.
That’s the game everyone else on the planet practically worships now.
Oh, but it gets much worse. Because when I mentioned this to my buddy Maelkoth and asked him what people saw in it, he said “People play it mostly for the comedy. “
And it was only then that I remembered people said the game supposedly had comedy of some kind in it.
Not that I could find. It maybe had some attempts at dark comedy and a few forays into “takes the form of comedy but isn’t funny per se” literary comedy, but for the most part, it was just grueling.
It’s just like John Dies At The End and American Gods. Both supposedly hilarious books beloved by millions, including a lot of people I love and respect, and I scan them as being free of comedy even as a concept.
The only possible explanation is that there is a massive piece of shared context I am missing. Something that all the comedy bounces off of in these people but for me it just lands with a thick wet thud then falls to the ground, lifeless.
So there you have it. Everyone else is enjoying the joke, but somehow, I just don’t get it.
Guess the joke’s on me, then,
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.