My Year of Gaming – 2011

Well, dear readers. Here we are. The end of one year, the birth of a new year; the last year, if some are to be believed. Will we all die horribly in a planetary, perhaps, galactic upheaval? Time will tell, dear readers — time will tell.

It has been quite a year though, hasn’t it? A year of revolutions, fallen dictators, I think there were some natural disasters in there. And while all of that happened, we played video games. Join me in a contemplative moment of righteous self-loathing, won’t you?

Ah, there we go. Clean conscience.

It was a banner year for video games, as well. Too good a year, if you ask me. So many titles I wasn’t able to get to, but so, so, so many I did. Countless hours, in fact. Hmm… shall we quietly hate ourselves again? Yes, I believe we shall.

Ah. Like a cold shower on a crisp winter’s morning.

Yes, it was a fine year that is now at an end all too suddenly. How could we possibly sum up? Why, the only way TV year-end summaries have always taught me, of course — awful rhyming!

Six Reasons Why Having an Anxiety Disorder is Bullshit

UPDATE 5/30/2013: Just an FYI, I don’t check this site a whole lot anymore but I’ve re-posted this piece at my new blog located here: http://rambohiggles.com/blog/2013/2/28/six-reasons-why-having-an-anxiety-disorder-is-bullshit

Like just about any nerd out there, I grew up with the constant knowledge that I was “different.” I’ve always been shy and quiet; I’ve also gone to great lengths to avoid uncomfortable situations and once or twice a year I have a full-on anxiety attack in the form of a huge tantrum.

Only in the last few years have I really found something to blame for all the things that made me feel like such a weirdo: high anxiety. It’s a small problem when compared to something like, say, addiction or genocide (you know, the standard benchmarks for sizes of problems), but having a constant sense of dread running through your brain is, to say the least, stressful. When that dread becomes too overwhelming, I freak out. These moments aren’t always, necessarily, full-blown panic attacks, but they are uncontrollable fits of nervousness and depression that shut me down for a day or two as my brain frantically sorts through all of its bullshit and buries me underneath.

High anxiety is such complete bullshit. It’s real and it isn’t at the same time. It’s in your head, but it also takes an actual, physical toll. It’s a construction of the mind, but it feels as tangible as a brick wall, where the bricks are made of mithril and the wall is covered in adamantium spikes and manned by rabid velociraptors armed with rapid-fire grenade launchers.

So what, exactly, makes high anxiety such bullshit? Well, for starters….

Currently Watching: Eden of the East

SPOILER ALERT!: They’re vague, but they’re there. You have been warned.

I don’t ‘get’ Japan. Don’t take that the wrong way; the same as any ludophile, I owe a great deal to Japan. Without Japan — without Nintendo, Sony, Sega, Final Fantasy, Atlus RPGs, the films of Hayao Miyazaki, Dragon Ball, Gundam, even Sailor Moon (yeah, I’ll admit . . . I watched it) — I wouldn’t be the person I am today. But my adoration of all-things-Japan wore off a long time ago, when I realized that much of the culture (especially the pop culture)  is, simply, beyond my capability to understand. Eden of the East is different.

New Basic Braining a Work in Progress: Theme?

As you can see, the ol’ portfolio is getting a revamp. At least, it’s getting as much of a revamp as it can, still tied to a free WordPress domain and theme. Wait… theme? Oh, how horribly confusing! No, this post is not about the template I’m using for the blog.

Previously, Basic Braining had been no more than a portfolio, a place to post all the stuff I write that appears elsewhere, but in one, convenient location. Well, I’m doing away with that, and making this into a proper blog. But what about? Ah, that’s the question. And that’s the kind of theme I’m talking about.

My first instinct is to make this a blog about game worlds, given my interest in worldbuilding. This prospect poses  a few difficulties. For one, my PC is a tired, old girl. She’s not running the Crysis 2′s or the Witcher 2′s or the Deus Ex 3′s. I do most of my gaming on console and I lack the proper means to capture the kinds of images that would be relevant to a blog about worldbuilding. Doesn’t rule out this idea, but it’s enough to give me pause. After all, wouldn’t a blog about worldbuilding be so much more interesting if it had images of the game worlds it’s exploring? Then again, this difficulty hasn’t stopped me before.

I thought about exploring game worlds in another way, continuing the game-crossing reports of Higgins Odious-Bonaparte, my thesaurus-dependent, in-game journalist alter-ego. But then I would need to change the name. Can I even do that? Hmm… I should probably know that. Not a good sign.

In college I once did a project to make a ‘zine. I came up with a concept for what would be a ‘zine presented as a series of journals by an archaeologist exploring game worlds. The first one was about the Mushroom Kingdom, featuring detailed notes and sketches of the various flora and fauna (I suppose that doesn’t make him much of an archaeologist, but whatever).

I could go all game diaries all the time. But I’d probably need to come up with a more interesting concept than simply regaling you with my in-game adventures. Even I know that’s only interesting to a certain point, paling in comparison to something as brilliant as Robin Burkenshaw’s Alice and Kev.

I just don’t know. Therefore, I’m going to give all of the above a shot (plus whatever else comes to me) and see what sticks. So bear with me as I try to figure out what, exactly, I want this… thing… to be. And if you have an opinion, please share! I’m not truly capable of thinking for myself.

Game Diary: Arx Fatalis 03 — Answering the Call

(Originally posted at Digital Hippos)

Tragedy. Ascending back up the goblin gulag hits me with one of the stranger bugs I’ve ever seen: the opening of the game repeats itself. I’m struck with the blue light, dragged away by the goblin and wake up in a jail cell. Only, something’s different….

Game Diary: Arx Fatalis 02 — The Envy of Kings

(Originally posted at Digital Hippos)

Emerging in the sub-(sub-sub-sub-sub-)-terranean tunnels beneath the goblin gulag, I find something I’ve been waiting for for far too long: pants! They’re being worn by a skeleton — not an undead monster skeleton, just a regular pile of bones — but they’re perfectly good pants and there’s no reason to let them go to waste, especially when this corpse doesn’t even have any legs.

Game Diary: Arx Fatalis 01 — No-Name

(Originally posted at Digital Hippos)

After a brief scene where I’m struck with blue light and dragged off by a goblin, I wake up to a familiar sight: a jail cell. But that debilitating glow had another effect: I can’t remember anything! Or was it the knock on the head from the goblin? Either way, it landed me right here, where I’ve so often found myself in the past: an imprisoned amnesiac.

Around me are the usual trappings: dank stone, dirt, a bare wooden bed, and a skull. Whether the skull is the last remains of a former prisoner or just goblin decor — there’s really no way of knowing.

This is my fellow prisoner. I don’t remember his appropriately convoluted fantasy name, so I’m just going to call him Wuzzles. I can tell from the way that he’s holding his midsection that he has really bad tummy ache, so it’s up to me to free us from the goblin gulag. Prying a loose rock and bending some bars (really shoddy workmanship, goblins) frees me from captivity, while a conveniently-located bone gives me the beans to bludgeon our goblin gaoler’s brain into putty.

Freeing Wuzzles, he gives me a new name: Am Shegaar (I think that’s how it’s spelled). It means … one who has no memory. Or is it one who has no name? Either way, it fits, but I think it’s going to be weird when I introduce myself to someone as Nameless Amnesiac.

Wuzzles tells me that he’s a member of the Traveller’s Guild. He says the the sun of our world fizzled out a long time ago. Since then, humans, goblins, trolls and dwarves have lived underground, while the surface has become a frozen wasteland. The Traveller’s Guild are the only people with the means to survive on the surface and travel between the various disparate subterranean settlements.

And with the obligatory world building exposition behind us, Wuzzles seneds me through a sewer grate to find a way out of the goblin gulag (I’m going to keep calling it that). His timmy hurts too much to follow, so it’s up to me to find a way out for the both of us.

Next time: rat-eating, spider-bludgeoning, glitched-elevator-dodging, and the triumphant return of Wuzzles — pugilist extraordinaire!

Regrettable Gaming: Dragon Age and my Inner-Child

For the past week or so I’ve been struggling with the notion of buying Dragon Age: Origins in preparation for Dragon Age 2. You see, I already played and finished Origins on the PS3, but I’m getting Dragon Age 2 on the 360. This means that I will have no save to transfer from DA:O to DA2.

Unacceptable.

I also realize that this means putting down $50 for the “Ultimate Collection.” $50 for a game I already own?

Also unacceptable.

BioWare knows how to get me.

I spent the better part of an afternoon rationalizing all the pros and cons of buying the game or not. I never played the DLC included in the “Ultimate Collection,” so technically $20 of the price is going to new stuff. I also really want to replay the game, or more accurately, I want to play a western RPG set in a gritty “low” fantasy world — an itch that will be scratched in a few weeks by Dragon Age 2, regardless of my decision.

I know that importing a save won’t have any major impact on the events or characters of Dragon Age 2; the developers have stated that an imported save mostly fills in back story. … But it’s my back story, and I want it to turn out my way, regardless of how trivial it may be.

Also, (and let’s face it, this was the real issue), I had just missed out on a promising and exciting job interview, due to forces beyond my control. I wasn’t blind to the fact that, really, I wanted to buy this game to make myself feel better, because there are pretty much only three ways that I deal with disappointment or depression: drinking, smoking and buying shit I don’t need.

The solution to all of life's dilemmas

As the “Cons” column was filled out by my mind’s desperate pleas to reason, and the “Pros” became characterized by flawed rationalizations and petty desires, nothing really changed. I didn’t re-buy Dragon Age, but boy, I still really wanted to. By the time I worked up the nerve to just go buy it, the time had passed; it was getting late, I had other plans for the night, and I knew there was no point. I decided to sleep on it.

I woke up still wanting it.

I took my morning constitutional, as I do every morning, to the sounds of my favorite comedy podcasts. I listen to comedy podcasts when I exercise because, I find, laughing is a good way to start the day. Also, they distract me from the thought that I’m actually exercising — an otherwise miserable way to start the day. Specifically, WTF with Marc Maron has become a form of therapy for me. I find that Maron and I share a lot of the same neuroses, but because he’s had more experience wrestling them, he’s able to articulate them in ways I can’t.

So imagine my surprise when he and guest Paul F. Tompkins briefly discussed this very same issue: buying things you don’t need as remedy for depression. Boy, was that ever a coincidence to shake my spiritual nihilism (if only slightly).

Am I possessed by a Desire Demon?

Specifically, they discussed the process of learning to be your own parent to your inner child, to tell yourself “no” when you know better.

My inner-child got pushed in the mud, and wanted arbitrary material gain to make up for it. Even though I’m still shelling out my own money, I wanted the Universe to pay the debt it owed me for fucking up that interview. I am owed compensation because things didn’t go my way!

The real-life, adult me was saying, “No! No, you can’t have this game! No, you can’t always have your way! No, the world does not revolve around you!”

My inner-child was responding, “Fuck you! I can do what I want!”

*sigh*

So I just bought Dragon Age again — the $50 “Ultimate Collection” for the 360. But at least now I can characterize the particular kind of self destruction in which I’m engaging. And that, my friends, is a little thing I like to call … growth.

Rural Rebellion on Rise

Albion Inquisitor
Rural Rebellion on Rise
By Higgins Odious-Bonaparte, Editor

Our Illustrious Sovereign, the Prodigious and Conscientious King Logan, rightly puts traitors to cessation of life every day. Most of these communistic barnacles are appropriated when they march on the castle gates, picketing with their calumniatory slogans. But in the Mistpeak dweller camp outside Brightwall Village, a new threat to royal prepotency has egressed.

MISTPEAK DWELLER CAMP– We’re all familiar with the camp of funny-sounding derelicts living up in the mountains outside of Brightwall Village. The savages have never posed much of a threat, but in his exquisite, overhwhelming charity, our Great King Logan allows them to go about their primordial ways in unmolested equanimity.

But now, reports are coming in of the commonality being roused by a mysterious hand-shaker and handout-giver, claiming to be our beloved Prince, who recently went missing following the anarchisms at Bowerstone Castle.

“Why, the lad walked right up to me and shook me hand,” claimed Aaron, a malodorous snow savage. “I didn’t know quite what to make o’ the lad at first, but then he shook me hand and I thunk, ‘Yah, he’s a good sort, this one.’ So, I gave him this ol’ seal I had on me, to help him with his venture.”

The abstruse stranger’s trickeries didn’t end with a simple, quotidian handshake.

“Why this lad, he bought from me a set o’ fur clothin’s,” added the local tailor, a term I use loosely to describe the piteous ‘outsider artist’ who stitches together the dwellers’ hides and rags. “When he shook me hand, he shook it for a while, see, and he finished shakin’ it, and we done a slappy-hand fist-bumpin’. ‘Fore that, I didn’t think much o’ the lad, but after, I kinda liked him. Not really liked him, mind ya, but liked him enough that I didn’t think nothin’ o’ him. I guess you could say, I liked him neutrally. Either way, I gave him this ol’ seal I had on me person, to help him on his way. He told me about a revolution or somethin’. Sounded alright to me.”

Even the camp’s children, already irrevoked to the illogicalness of their elders’ culture, interacted with the traitor.

“He came right up to me and let out a big belch right in me face!” claimed one local child, giggling noncompliantly. “Then, he gave me ten gold just ‘cause. I like this man. I gave him a big blue seal to show him how much I like him.”

Though the tribals were easily manipulated by the unfledged traitor, listening to his treacherousness and offering their only prized possessions (the useless blue seals owned by every single citizen of Albion), not one of them has any idea from whence the apostate actually emanated.

“He just appeared out of thin air on the hill outside camp,” asserts Sarah the Beggar, who was too busy asking for handouts to think any more on the mystification. “When he shook me hand and gave me ten gold pieces, I just thanked him and gave him me blue seal.”

Tribal chief Sabine avouched that no such man exists, “There was no one shaking the hands of my people*, but if someone were to take the time to shake all of their hands, I wouldn’t be surprised that they might be urged toward rebellion and hand over their blue seals. Maybe if Logan shook more hands**, people would like him more.”

When assailed on the current whereabouts of this Enemy of Liberty, the savages made no comment. But we’ve reports of a “trail of sparkling sparklies” leading to contiguous Brightwall Village.

We’ll have more on this story as it maturates.

*Ed. note: The Albion Inquisitor does not support the dwellers’ notion that they are, by annotation, “people.” We’re enfettered by journalistic rectitude to print chief Sabine’s quote scrupulously, despite its preposterous claims to the antithetical.

**Ed. note: The Albion Inquisitor wants to remind our Potentate and censors that we would never accredit our Wonderful King Logan divulging himself to the feculence and affliction spread by engaging in physicality with the squalid savages.

Five Games to Play When It’s Too Hot to Live

Despite being weeks into Autumn, Southern California is currently hotter than it was all summer. There’s no breeze, no cloud in the sky; no respite from the fist of the fiery death-orb that oppresses us all and stops me from going about my daily routine.

Also, I have no air-conditioning.