Making myself sad for your amusement, you dicks

I may have done a silly thing.

Moreso than usual.

You see, I was wandering around my local supermarket, allegedly to help with the purchasing of a few essentials but in practice is was more being a bad influence. And then I see this on the shelves:

Luffy looks angry at me for finding a foodstuff that's not good.

And as the picture suggests, I immediately brought it.

That milkshake sounds like the worst culinary idea in the world. We all know the smell of Skittles, the powerful near-sickly sweetness with fruity overtones. As a crunchy chewy juicy sweet, they're quite frankly awesome. But combined with dairy? Eeeerrrrghhh. That's so wrong. All that citrus fruit with diary – how does it not instantly curdle? Just looking at it make my stomach churn. So naturally I was overcome by and unstoppable urge to buy and drink it.

I don't get it either. For starters, I'm not a masochist here. While I enjoy watching reviews of bad movies, I don't want to put myself through them. I did that once at university with a couple of film nut friends, and even to take the piss out of it, there is very little enjoyment to be had out of Uwe Boll's House of the Dead. It's just awful, boring, and unpleasant to sit through. No thanks.

Choke risk? Yes. I could imagine that.

With greater context, it makes even less sense. I have a permanent moderate level nausea... because nature said so. With medication that I'll take for the rest of my life it's low level to forgettable. A year or so back, before I was on my current set of drugs, had some of the lowest points of my life, with a battle to actually eat and keep food down that seemed to never end. Whilst I'm a hell of a lot better now, I still rarely eat to being full: that uncomfortable feeling you get when you slightly overeat is so similar to how I used to feel all the damn time that I can't bring myself to get anywhere near that. It always strikes me that no matter how many machetes and crossbows I stockpile, how many places I judge fit to live due to their ease of turning into a fort, the friends I pick due to my ability to outrun them.... that in a true zombie aplocalyspe, I won't be a survivor. Assuming I actually survive the initial wave of infection, I've got, what? Three weeks? Three weeks tops and my medication runs out and I'll be Green Face McGee, puking up over my own feet as I feebly attempt to ward off the oncoming horde by clutching my stomach and whimpering. So you'll understand I'm not Mr. Iron Stomach here: I don't want to go back. I brought it instantly to inflict upon myself knowing it wouldn't be good and I would suffer, and only later figured I'd share my misery with all of you because you'd quite likely find that hilarious. You assholes.

So what I'm basically saying, for what is about to occur, I deserve no sympathy for my stupidity. Not one fucking drop. So, from what comes, is totally my opinion, right? No lawsuits please, I'm broke. Okay. Let's do this.

Huh.

Oh what is with that colour? Is... that pink with a shade of grey? Oh Jesus why. Nah, that's probably just the lighting. God I hope it's the lighting. Well, I'm going into this in a negative place. Let's hope it doesn't skew the experience too much. Let's smell it!

What.

What is this?

Yeah, that's the unmistakable smell of a bunch of Skittles mashed up with milk. So it's got the smell right at least! Hahahahahaaaa whhhhhhhhhy. Time for a sip.

One sip.

One tiny sip.

Just fucking drink it, you wuss.

Here goes...

Okay. Hmm. Right. That's... something, alrighty. Not as awful as I was fearing. Not as Skittle tasting either. It's got the smell, not the taste though. Which... could be good? Or bad? Fuck knows.

It's basically strawberry milkshake... mostly, and then the aftertaste hits you. It's... sweet, I guess? A little chemical-y. Not particularly pleasant. Hmm. Oh sweet crap I've emptied the glass taking sip after sip just trying to find the words to describe this aftertaste. A wordsmith I am not. Urgh. Time to pour some more.

The picture's crap, but by this point I was feeling too shit to care.

It's not good. It's not a good aftertaste. It's very distracting. You're getting the initial, 'Hey, this is just strawberry, that's not too bad,' vibe going and then the second part hits you and it's not... completely awful. But it's not totally pleasant, and it throws you off, and sort of retroactively messes with your experience drinking it so that you're not very happy at what you're doing to yourself.

So, in summary, it was a bad idea to make it, a bad idea to buy it, and a bad idea to drink it, but less awful then I feared. I will not finish the bottle, as I really don't want to keep going, and my stomach is already starting to churn here.

However, from the same company that brought you that, they also have a Mars bar drink. Which is fucking awesome, just chocolate and caramel. That works! See! That's how you do it! That stuff's delicious, and is so full of sugar and fat it's like glorious diabetes in a bottle.

Which I have waiting for me for when I feel better, taking advantage of the two for two pound offer. Now please excuse me... I want to rinse my mouth out.

Errrrrrrgh. Whhhhhhhhhhy. At least I know how I'll be spending the rest of my night... puking up over my own feet as I feebly attempt to ward off the upcoming milshake by clutching my stomach and whimpering.

Anyone getting deja vu?

Yeah.

Give me 24 hours, please. I did promise two updates, and I'm not sorta delivering. I'm sorry. However, Tomb Raider impressions was huge, and the next thing I'm doing is a food review. In all honesty, I love every one of you people that come here and push the view count up, bit by bit, inflating my ego bit by bit.

But if I eat anything now I will puke everywhere. And I love you all, but not enough to puke everywhere. Sorry.

So. In summary: 24 hours, and I should have something interesting up, and normal service will hopefully resume before I turn myself into the blog equivalent of VG Cats.

Delving deeply into dark and dusty past and present of Tomb Raider

So let's talk about the newest, and simply named Tomb Raider game, where first we must discuss two important points:

1. Yes, I am late to the party, as I was with Far Cry 3. I don't buy games when they come out any more, I wait until prices drop. Any publishers angsty that this behaviour may effect sales figures can please address EA for this, because until them, I used to be a first day buyer. And yes, I am still butthurt over Mass Effect 3. Deal with it. Lord knows my partner reluctantly has.
   
   
2. Yeah, I'm not a Tomb Raider fan.

For the longest time I just could not give a shit about the Tomb Raider franchise. Some of that was due to the fact that I grew up in an Nintendo household, and thus missed out on Tomb Raider which was coming out mostly for the Playstation. However, when I was exposed to it via friend's consoles, I still can't say I was impressed, having an especially vivid memory of watching someone be stuck in an early room for over half an hour because the jumping controls were so bad. Look, past friend who's name I forget, remember Mario 64? Yeah, because that game just fucking nailed platforming in a 3D environment first time out of the gate, so you're not impressing me. And later games? Weeeelll...

Somewhere, the Everyday Sexism Project is weeping.

This. Just... this. Thighs. Thighs and tits. No face, because the important thing is the thighs and tits. This was Tomb Raider for me. No stellar gameplay (most people I knew who played would still grudgingly admit prevailing camera and control issues.) No enthralling story. No must-see gameplay mechanics. All of Tomb Raider that came across was, 'Lookit dem jugs.' And look at that box art again, just... it's pathetic. For all I know, the story, controls, environment, gameplay... could be fantastic. Just tits came first. And when you advertise to me tits first, in my view, it comes across that you've got nothing else worth seeing, and that you're desperately hoping that bouncing jubbly goodness will distract me from the flaws. And you know what? Re-reading my work, I can come across as a man so enamoured with gender equality that I despise breasts in all forms, that they should be covered up at all times and shunned away, especially regarding my views on stupid female costumes. But no. In truth, I like breasts. Like, really like breasts. I am rather fond of them. They're in my top five things of best things evar (or is that BREAST things evar am I ohgodIhatemyself) but when you blatantly appeal to my penis I, ironically enough, get turned off. My penis doesn't deal with financial decisions for a reason. Besides, I have porn. We all have porn. Selling a product on the basis of glimpsing at breasts is completely useless in this day and age of ubiquitous porn. If I want breasts, I'll go to porn, thanks. You're not needed.

Also her costume is stupid, did I mention that? That is not the wear for dicking about the inside of tombs. You'll get cut all over, and get three hundred year-old smallpox rubbed in your open wounds, and die alone and unloved shivering in the fetal position, in the back of a damp and smelly cave in the middle of nowhere, to be found by the next wandering idiot in four thousand years time. And how would you take out your raided loot from said tomb? It's not like that outfit suggests any carry space. Hell, even the film outings annoyed me, regardless of Anglina's Jolie's... assets. Her smirk as a giant lumbering animated statue advances on her, the 'Yeah, I do this all the time,' look? If you do this all the time, why do you only bring a pair of bloody pistols? If aggressive giant lumbering animated statues was a regular feature of the health and safety risk assessment of my day job, I wouldn't be bringing along just a set of poxy pistols. H&S would likely be insisting all employees to be provided with an assault rifle with three hundred rounds, with every fifth person equipped with an underslung grenade launcher, alongside the standard steel toe cap boots, high visibility jackets, ear plugs and enough accident report forms to cover every eventuality.

So, I am not a traditional fan, yet I got this new game. Square Enix's Tomb Raider was the first Tomb Raider I have ever bought. So why? And was it worth it?

(From here on in, we gots spoilers. Be warned.)

For the why, it may have slightly been motivated by that bow on the cover. Yeah. Far Cry 3 remnants, that. However, Lara here puts the Dragonborn from Skyrim and Jason Brody from Far Cry 3 to shame. None of this pull back, pull back, pull back a little bit more, hear that creak, nearly there, pull back just a wee bit more, ah! There we go! We can fire an arrow that does actual damage and goes more then four feet forward, though unfortunately the enemy has either died of old age at this point or has already killed you, buried you in an unmarked grave, retired with honour from the military and has peacefully settled down with his childhood sweetheart and now runs a inn with the assistance of their grandchildren. Nah. You look, it's nocked. Like that. Bam! Nocked. Ready to go. Fire one, flies clear and true, nocked, ready again. She must have arms like tree trunks. Get in an arm-wresting match with this Croft and she'll rip your arm straight off and beat you to death with it. God that bow is fun. And then you can fire fire arrows whenever you damn well please. I am Lara Croft. The Angel of Burny Happy Agony Death. That'll teach you to pay me less, chauvinist pig.

The story thus far has been pretty solid, though admittedly I'm on the last level so it's still possible it'll pull a small scale Mass Effect 3 ending on me but I doubt it. Lara and a bunch of archaeology friends are going searching for an ancient queen tomb thing, as you do, and your boat (and shit) gets royally wrecked. You wake up on basically the island from Lost: crazy cult people, mysterious weather phenomenon, supernatural forces keeping you on the island, etc. Only this time focus is spent on a lost seventeen year old girl wielding a bow fighting off waves of insane islanders while being beaten bloody by the universe, and there's no Kate, Jack or Walt. So basically it's way better than Lost.

On a more serious note, this game did attract me with a greater emphasis on story and empathy. Her decision to wear trousers helped as well. Any criticisms I fare about her clothes are probably backed by Lara herself, as firstly, she was just chillin' in the boat when Shit Got Real and so this wasn't her pragmatic tomb raiding outfit of choice, (it's more sort of casual wear and she really doesn't get an opportunity to change out of it,) and secondly, Lara is aware that it's not adequate survival wear. Watching her shivering, sopping wet, hunched over a fire as the rain and wind lashed down in the first chapter kinda drove that one home. I'm chillin' in my apartment, and my bare, muscular, famously ripped arms get a little bit cold, I'll put on this light hoodie (but maybe not right now because it'll take like twenty minutes to tease it over these bulging biceps,) and she's out in the rain in a strappy top? I am this close from buying the DLC that gives her a leather bomber jacket out of sympathy.

Of course, what this game is about is that it's a prequel, setting up Lara as the ass-kicker she becomes, which is does so by beating the bejeezus outta her. The only way she could take any further damage is to be put in Chris Brown's care for twenty minutes. Now this was to promote empathy of the player for Lara, which for me got mixed results. For starters, while the opening scene of her shivering felt most compelling, there's also a disconnect between the player and the character regarding temperature: it's freezing cold to her, but I, am perfectly warm, and I will make her swim to the bottom of that pond as many times as it takes to get that collectible, 'cos I ain't suffering here in my chair. Not only that, whilst emphasis was placed on her lack of power compared to her enemies, as an experienced gamer, it didn't stick. In real life, if six armed men went to attack a lone woman, it would be one of the most terrifying and harrowing experience life would have to offer. In game, I can walk out of the encounter without taking a single hit, and possibly do it mostly in melee to avoid expending ammo if I'm feeling frugal. Square Enix didn't fully commit to some of the more sexual nature of the aggression displayed, which I'm glad: if I'd have failed a Quick Time Event and was shown Lara getting raped for my ham-fistedness I would have been sick to my stomach. Instead you just get killed, which while prompting a distasteful, 'You're doing rape wrong!' joke from me is infinitely more preferable than the alternative.

Lara's comparable weakness is shown in subtle little gameplay mechanics as well: Lara must aim to use her weapons, narrowing her field of view and removing the common hip-fire that most protagonists get, and her starter melee option is... a shove. One little, insignificant shove. I was more aware of the smoke and mirrors trying to get me to buy into the illusion than I was buying into the illusion. I didn't mind, it was sort of like watching Penn & Teller; if the work behind the scenes is impressive enough you'll still be entertained. One moment in particular had me charmed: when climbing up a crevice in a storm, rocks shifted above you and came tumbling down, and as Lara shielded herself, you could just see her bottom lip start to tremble. Aw. Lara. I'll get you out of this.

Then we got to the Shantytown injury scene.

Ohh. So, for context, gravity hates Lara Croft. You cannot go more than five steps without something collapsing underfoot, something above you crashing down, you falling over and sliding down a slope, you falling over causing you to go sliding down a slope whilst something above you crashes down and chases, etc. It got to the the point that every time I was yelling, 'Lara, what did you do to gravity?' Because gravity was getting personal. I came to the conclusion that either Lara has stood up the anthropomorphic personification of gravity at a date once, or gravity was enraged at her boobs, and could not tolerate such wilful defiance to it's laws. Anyway, one above average tumble later, Lara's limping, and talking about how this time she really needs some first aid. Okay. Fine. Makes sense. So I go about trying to scramble up buildings trying to collect collectibles and Lara starts squealing in pain, and the screen fades out with every jump, threatening death. I hurriedly apologize to Lara – okay, you're actually really hurt, I didn't realise you were being serious, I'll come back for the collectibles later. I'm sorry. Lara spies a helicopter, she reasons there must be a first aid kit in there, I go along, that's seems reasonable, and one application of magic bandages later and I'll be able to get her to backtrack and scramble up those buildings to get those delicious collectibles. Groovy. Now we get into the helicopter: no bandages. Nuts. Guess I'll be stuck with gimpy Lara for a little while longer. However, Lara's kinda diminishing fast, and doesn't have time to keep looking.

On the other hand, she does have a working lighter, a metal arrowhead, and a resigned calculating expression.

Ohhhh. Ow. Yeah, Lara, you do that. Quick scene of her getting the arrowhead red hot, and she hesitantly brings it to her side... bam! Beautifully executed discretion cut, as birds fly away startled at her implied screaming, and I start to politely clap at the marvellous work of the cinematography there and on no god we go immediately back inside the helicopter. And it's no longer implied screaming. It's real, honest-to-god screaming. Lara's in pain. She's in pain so bad. She is shrieking and oh god she's crying it hurts so much and I am so sorry please don't hurt. Please don't hurt. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. And for once, just once, the disconnect between Lara's experience and my experience, as the player, feels so far apart in the best way because I just want to be here for her and make it okay. I don't want her to hurt any more.

So to say that Square Enix succeeded in getting me to engage with Lara is a given. Her voice actress, Camilla Luddington, should be commended for that scene, and I wonder how she pulled it off without a Square Enix developer advancing on her with a hot poker. You'll want to get Lara through all this mess, believe me. It all starts to pay off, with all her trials resulting in her coming out of her experience as an unafraid kicker of all ass, and it's oh so satisfying to hear her yell, 'That's it, run!' and you start sweeping through enemies on the the later stages of the game. So in conclusion – it's fun. The story's interesting (though I've yet to complete it yet, I'm at the last bit), the gameplay and controls are very well done, and you'll connect well on a emotional level. Those tombs that feature in the title? They're there, but sorta optional, but they have some of the most fun moments puzzling through. It never got too hard that I went to the internet for help, while being hard enough that it felt really satisfying once you figured it out, so a great balancing act performed there. Get the game. It's worthy of all the praise it's been getting.

Now because I couldn't find an organic way to incorporate nitpicks logically, I'm just going to dump them here. What? I'm not a very good writer. I'm still learning. Deal with it. Or, don't go, and I'll try to get better, I promise. Anyway:

• Okay, those bloody Quick Time Events. I played on the PC, and I imagine that console copies may have a similar problem: In QTE's, you have your 'Use' key and 'Strike' key requested at key moments. And they're both represented by a small, red, circular symbol. And these scenes are very dynamic, so your screen is taken up by a rapidly-moving distracting scuffle. See my problem? Eighty five percent of my deaths has been due to command confusion. Jesus, Square Enix, this is not that hard: Bigger prompts, use more than one colour.
  
  
• Your shotgun. Is useless. So some of the blame for this is my fault; I barely used the shotgun throughout the game, and was a little late in the game for applying upgrades. However, a lot of it's Square Enix's fault, as it's the necessary item to open certain obstacles. So I avoided using it for fear of using up all my ammo and finding a hidden cubby-hole I couldn't access and would later have to backtrack to. Who's fault is it in balance? Well, still Square Enix's because it's unacceptable to have to fire a shotgun at point blank range three fucking times before a bad guy drops. No. Bad Square Enix. I ended up using the pistol at close range, or just used counter kills. Closing the distance to use the shotgun got me killed two thirds to the remaining percentile of time. If I died sixty times, how many times did I die due to the shotgun? Please write your answers in comments, and show your working.
  
  
• Obvious bad guys are obvious. Early on, you run into a stranger called Mathias, who says he's a teacher. With a weird voice. And a mohawk thing. With mismatched clothes. With a dogtag/bead necklace. Called Mathias. Who the fuck is called Mathias who's not an evil guy? How is any of this not sending 'super creep' signals to anyone? Also, obvious traitor is obvious. Tie them up, and take away their gun. No? Oh, he kidnapped someone and ran away. HUH HOW DID THAT HAPPEN.
  
  
• When stuck in a underground exploding cave, what does Lara use to free her friends in an open cage? More explosions to move the cage. What.
  
  
• How comes on the multiple times I'm disarmed in the game, why does no one take my climbing axe away? The one I use for not only climbing, but whacking people upside the head? It's like the boss declared all right, we've got her pistol? Check. Bow? Check. Shotgun? Check. Rifle? Check. Okay, that'll do... what is it, Jeffrey? No, leave her climbing axe, it's not on the list. What? She'll use it? Hardly, there's no special climbing walls around here. Now, we're expected to... what is it? She can use it as a weapon? Jeffrey, what are you smoking? It's a climbing. Axe. For climbing. What is it about the words, 'climbing axe,' is possibly worrisome? I've said climbing so much it's lost all reason. I'm just going to call it her axe, okay? Leave her with her axe, Jeffrey. It's fine.
  
  
• Mulitplayer. Why. No one cares. Oh, and there won't be further DLC single player content like additional tombs, just multiplayer fluff. Square Enix. You dolts.
  
  
• And this game, that took a non0fan and converted me, that I've had so much fun with... there may not be another. You see, Square Enix spend an imperial crazy fuck tonne on this game, and it only managed a measly 3.4 million sales Wait, you say that staggering amount of sales is an incredible amount? How could they possibly lose money on that? An imperial crazy fuck tonne of cash, my friend, spent on a hair physics engine that somehow still keeps her side parting in place whilst upside down.

Tomb Raider is available on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. PC versions necessitate a Steam account to use, which isn't too terrible as they're free at least. It is currently on sale... everywhere, so here are some random links to it if you're interested. If it helps, search for 'Tomb Raider 2013' as searching just 'Tomb Raider' will bring up every game in it's history. Thank you, non-standard naming convention. That's really helpful.

Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/203160/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dvideogames&field-keywords=tomb%20raider&sprefix=tomb+r%2Cvideogames&rh=i%3Avideogames%2Ck%3Atomb%20raider

Play.com: http://www.play.com/Search.html?searchstring=%22tomb+raider+2013%22&searchsource=0&searchtype=gameall

Just done running out of time

Gawd dang it.

I'm very sorry, but... You'll get a double post next week. Unfortunately, what I wanted to blither on about has been taking me too long to complete, and the backup piece I have... is also taking way too long.

Perhaps a back up back up?

Anyways, come back Wednesday.

Baroness Thatcher and her legacy-NOPE VIDJA GAMES.

I was thinking about writing something about the passing of Baroness Thatcher today, but I've thought against it as it would be pointless waffle: nearly every newspaper has decided that she was the greatest most wonderful and perfect being on all creation so that's that. And if you disagree you're basically a baby rapist. I mean, I would of liked some debate. I won't sit here banging a drum declaring that she was the anti-Christ. She did a lot of things. Some of which, in my opinion, was for the best for this county. Others of which had a detrimental effect. Could we have a debate about whether one outweighs the other?

Yes, over 30 pages of tribute, which was standard for everyone else.

Er. I guess that's a no, then. Most wonderful perfect being ever. Got it.

So I'm going to talk about Farcry 3 some more. From here on in, I will be discussing the game including the endings, so... spoilers. For everything. You have been warned.

One of the things I previously mentioned I like about Farcry 3 was how it was way more intelligent than I originally expected. Of course, when you're playing a whiz bang shooter that isn't really saying much, but if definitely explored a variety of themes I haven't seen before... probably until I get round to going through Spec Ops: The Line. I was interested in how they started your character: as a colossal dudebro jackass Jason. You get thirty seconds establishing what a colossal dudebro jackass you and your friends are before being dumped into a cage with your brother and this guy:

Oh, hey Vaas? How ya doing?

More on that guy later. Oh god, more on that guy later.

And as you escape, you totally freak out. Which, you know, it totally fair. This scenario is a little out of most people's comfort zone. And your brother keeps you alive... until he's shot in the throat, and you spend a futile minute trying to hold his neck together as he chokes and bleeds out. Whilst you stare at him, and he stares back at you. Completely unable to help. It felt like a switch had taken place, as in order to explain the amount of ass kicking and weapon proficiency that would later take place your expect the elder brother with military training to be the main protagonist, not the first victim, so the younger, irresponsible brother is pushed into the limelight instead. Most strange as well that they had Jason panic, as most whiz bang shooter leads only get to be angry, as fear is like, for wimps.

It's a very curious thing that older horror movies tried to have sympathetic and relatable characters so that you'd connect with them and be tense, hoping they'd pull through whereas today most horror movies characters are bloody awful examples of human beings, and you're actively encouraged to cheer for their deaths. Here, in Farcry 3, we start with the latter scenario, but as control is given to you, and you stare through his eyes, your Jason and his friends become the former. I wanted to get everyone out – no one deserved this.

So you go get them back over the course of the game, as you wake up after escaping to a bloke tattooing your arm and telling you that you're totally a warrior. Ah, the 'chosen one standby,' happily explaining why we've been sitting on our asses for so long and why we're going to let you do everything. Any arguments over a man tattooing me without consent whilst I slept was mitigated by the fact it is a bitchin' tattoo, not something lame like a Fluttershy tattoo. Of course, yes, you are the fabled warrior to help them out, as if you were snivelling in police custody for months it wouldn't make for an exciting game. So, grab a pistol, time to do stuff.

Here's where I nitpick a little: you can only carry so much crap on you because your holsters and webbing is only so big, and you need to upgrade them over time. Makes sense. However, from the get go, you can effectively use every weapon in the game. Let's be honest here, I've never handled a gun. I might – just might – be able to figure out how to reload a pistol due to thier pop culture popularity. I mean, there's only so many moving parts, a short play would hopefully help me figure things out. However, if you handed me a grenade launcher or one of these...

Oh god, is that belt fed? How would you reload that? I'm just a British man-child!

I'd have no fucking clue. Hell, how would I fire one? The laws of physics suggest the recoil would be intense. And guns are fairly point-and-click. Bows on the other hand, that I used quite heavily in game? That would require some serious training. And it's never mentioned that Jason is an expert in all types of ordinance ahead of time. It seems odd to me that they didn't try to explain this, or have me be trained over the course of the story. But it's a small enough nitpick – it's a common video game issue, as Half Life for one demonstrates.

Back to intelligent bits. Farcry 3 makes a very good example of changing mindsets for the worse. As you start, you entire motivation is to 'I must save my friends.' Well, in that case, if you want help: go clear out that outpost. Go capture these explosives. Go tickle this baby goat. Etc. As time progresses and challenges mount, it subtly shifts to 'I must get stronger to save my friends.' Before long, as the body count rises, it moves a little bit more. 'I want to get revenge for my friends.' It's not long after that until 'I want to kill Vass and his boss, Hoyt.' Little, subtle, baby steps, from good and noble intentions to a rocky path. I found it especially intriguing when you talk to a friend about how killing people has stopped feeling wrong, and has started to feel like winning, with no Charlie Sheen joke to be seen. The tragic thing is that person who most would have been able to assist Jason confront these feelings and come to terms with them was his older brother... the first person he saw die.

That being said Farcry 3 friends, don't give me shit anymore, okay? When I come barrelling through the door to your compound, bow in one hand, flames covering the other, and fifty dead men behind me, that, that was officially the time that you lost the ability to ever give me shit for anything ever again. Ever. Okay, fine, I left you there for two months as I scoured the land looking for tapirs to kill and skin to make bigger wallets and quivers. But it wasn't like I wasn't going to save you! I needed it! How could possibly save you without them? Okay, fine, I probably could of without, but it was a hell of a lot easier with. And those bad guys has assault rifles! I needed every advantage I could get! So. Uh. Hope those last two months weren't too bad. Oh, and Liza? When I rescued you, don't give me shit about cheering over the mountain of corpses of dead guys. They lit us on fire, and after that grenade spamming car chase, it's perfectly natural to be having a giant adrenaline high. Actually, why aren't you having an adrenaline high?

That was another interesting aspect about Farcry 3: your relationship with your girlfriend, Liza. By the time you rescue her, you've been given enough clues to suggest that your relationship was getting strained by the time everyone went wrong, mainly on account of you be a responsibility-ducking dudebro dick. Originally, I was wary that she intended a break up prior to these events, and that by saving her you'd basically trapped her in the relationship; you can't exactly break up with the man who, as previously mentioned, broke down the door to rescue you with a bow in one hand, flames covering the other, and fifty dead men behind him. It's sorta rude. Fortunately this wasn't the case, and shows of affection in first person view were surprisingly intimate. Staring through a Jason's eyes almost felt intrusive on the quieter moments with her. However, further conditions you find yourself in don't help, especially when you have more friends to save and you younger brother is thought to be dead. Unable to process it, you turn away support and try holding things together until everything's over.

As Jason's slips into the 'Kill everyone who wronged me' mentality later, he decides to stay on the island with the people who he's been helping, with Citra – leader of the Rakyat warriors who assists you, a woman who understands and encourages his current frame of mind. When he breaks this to everyone that he isn't leaving, effectively ending his relationship with Liza as well, it's heartbreaking. She states specifically that she's been waiting for you to grow up, to shoulder responsibility as you do know for so long, so that she can see you reaching your potential she saw you capable of for so long... and now that it's happened, it's over, and it hurts. Farcry 3. Has deep emotional moments with the changing of set relationships between romantically attached characters. I was surprised as you are.

Now I want to talk about Vaas.

Vaas is fucking terrifying.

I cannot express just how much I did not want to be in the same room as his man. This man fucking terrified me. His walk, his baring, the way he talked; this was a man who one day woke up and truly realised to himself one terrible fact – he did not have to abide by any moral code if he did not want to. That he did not have to suffer any consequences if he did not want to. It's chilling. Look at this scene:

Yeah. When I went to kill him, I didn't want it to be up close, I wanted it through the scope of an over-powered sniper rifle as extreme distance. Knowing he was close to you or people you cared about? You had no idea what he would do, for no other reason than 'because.' I haven't seen a man define 'insane' like this apart from the Joker. And it completely sucked when you killed him, as Hoyt was not a good enough follow up. Hoyt was a business man. Big. Fucking. Whoop. It should have been the other way round: you take an opportunity on the fly to kill Hoyt, you succeed, and Vaas takes over his organisation and everything goes to hell. Further. Way better.

Hoyt and Buck was another thing that annoyed me. Buck has one of your friends, who he is implied to be merrily raping away, and you do jobs for him to retrieve a knife he wants. Okay. Fine. But when the trade off happened, he tried to kill you. Okay. Fine. He's a bad guy. Whatever. But when I walking into his shack, and he pointed to downstairs, the game ignored a critical thing. Remember that gun I showed you earlier? When I walked into Buck's shack, I WAS CARRYING ONE. (A heavily modified one, in fact, to make it even more dangerous.) Amongst other things, like a bow with explosive arrows, a silenced SMG of doom and a silenced sniper rifle if I remember correctly. Walking arsenal, thy name is Jason. So having Buck, in his underwear, no less, try to use said knife to kill me and I knife fight him back... yeah. That was weird. It wasn't like I didn't have options. All I could think of when he advanced on me was, 'This gun in my hands can fire around 650-750 rounds a minute, with a muzzle velocity of around 825 metres a second. It seriously fucks shit up. Why aren't I using it? Sigh.' 

A similar scenario happens with Hoyt. After making a big deal that you intend to infiltrate his organization to get close enough to kill him, you end up in his office alone with him as he talks to you about globalisation, before you get up and leave to torture someone on his request. Uh. Jason. Repeat to me back your goal again? What are you doing? Get close enough and...? Yes...? KILL HIM YOU DOLT. Once again, by that point, I was carrying FOUR silenced weapons. Shoot him and sneak out! Fuck it, knife him and sneak out even! Damn it Jason. This is why you end up being unable to count to ten using all your fingers. At least Buck was a boss fight!

While Buck was an example of an evil man who was gay, I would like to point out a surprising scene, considering I was wondering if the game was unfortunately unintentionally implying that gay = evil. One random quest I got was to investigate the husband of a wife who was afraid he was cheating on her with some woman. She was... half right. No woman, but he was cheating on her. And the conversion and delivery impressed me. Firstly, the overheard conversation between the husband as his male lover never referred to sex (although, yes, it was obviously happening) but the lover's hurt over the fact that at the end of the day he left him to go back to her, and it was killing him being apart like that. When you confronted the husband, you told him to man up – not that a homosexual relationship was deemed not masculine, but the dishonesty was. And the final words of the husband was that he had hurt both the people he loved, and deserved neither. One quick quest, and handled with great maturity. It says something disappointing about video games when the fact neither husband nor his lover spoke with an effeminate lisp surprised me. Video games rarely handle homosexual relationships with anything approaching maturity, so big kudos to the writers, develops, and publisher here. (On the other hand, they might be implying that lying is a feminine trait and gay people are evil, raping, cheating bastards, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they were going for.)

And one tiny little final nitpick about the main game: When you clear out an outpost of the previous inhabitants, Rakyat warriors drive up to man it. It is not cool, Farcry 3, to have those warriors then verbally announce how awesome they were. I just cleared out the base. Not them. They didn't dare move until every single person was dead. I went in alone. I don't want to listen to them bragging about something they didn't do. I mean, sometimes even I didn't brag, like when I once freed an emu by shooting out it's cage, and it slaughtered the whole damn base, and when I tried to get into the base afterwards to chased me off and I ran straight into a perfect dick-height thorn bush. No bragging was done that night.

Now comes the bit I discuss the ending. So, if you weren't paying attention to the spoiler warnings before, pay attention now, you jackass.

When the game ends, you're rescuing your little brother who you'd previously thought dead, who fortunately finds that operating a helicopter and aeroplane are totally alike.

Basically the same thing.

As you go to recover your friends, your allies the Rakyat warriors, on orders of Citra, raid their hiding place and kidnap them. When you arrive at her temple, a real big 'WTF' at the ready, she does what she always does around you; dose you to the eyeballs with a new drug. Whee. When you come to, you're holding a knife to your girlfriend's throat, Liza (though technically ex-girlfriend may be more appropriate,) and given a choice: To kill your friends, or to spare them.

Let's continue firstly under the assumption you let your friends live.

Citra? Hi, Citra? Uh, you remember why I came here in the first place, right? To save these guys and gals? To get strong enough to save these people? Yes, sure, I may have gone off the deep end with the desire to kill Vaas and Hoyt overriding that, but that was back when I thought I was two brothers down and it now turns out it's only one. He's over there, at the back, where you trussed him up. Say hi, Riley. Citra, Riley, Riley, Citra. It's important to meet each other's family. We've all met her brother, Vaas, right? We all remember? Well, of course we remember, he's the one who kidnapped us, hah, not going to forget that... er... yeaaaah. Okay.

Moving on. 

Even assuming I was still riding the revenge train, you do realise the root cause of my growth was to rescue these people right? I spent a lot of time, ammo, blood, sweat and tears that one time I stumbled into a thorn bush groin-first frantically fleeing from a emu. And look, I already established I was staying. With you, you crazy drug-addled bitch. Christ. Yes, please go on about how my friends would only live boring lives settling down when my true destiny was to be a warrior – that is what I was aiming for. They go away, live safe, and I stay here. God. We should probably rethink this thing we've got going. While admittedly, I'm liking the sexual implications of the whole 'I just want to worship you' thing, I'm remembering some old advice about crazy bitches. So. Liza. So sorry about this. This entire situation is messed up to hell and back. Can we talk about this later, when we're good and safe? Please ignore the ranting nutter. Yes, she's working herself up something fierce, shhh, don't make eye contact, I think she might be on drugs. Just a hunch. Oh look, here's my friend Dennis, he'll calm things down.

Dennis, you suck at calming thing down.

Okay, that happened. Right. This is awkward. You know I was going to not bring up the state of mine and Citra's relationship, Liza, but it's kind of obvious Citra and I had a thing the way she saved me and you know what? I'm blathering. This is all... this is all... very sad. With your leader dying, and all. Sorry. I didn't do it. He did. Bad Dennis. Ah. Everyone untied? Yes? The helicopter's still out front. Let's ghet out of the Rakyat's way, let them grieve, and stuff... we'll just... yeah. Hah. Yeah. Sorry about this. Just... we're just gonna go, right? Right. See you.

Oh course, you could decide to kill you friends... because, so Citra sexes you up, and then this happens.

Um, if I wasn't very good or finished too fast baby, there were other ways to get this across.

Okay, Citra? I'm going to be honest with you. I think we need to see other people. This relationship clearly isn't going anywhere. What with the fact we're different people, wanting different things, and there's the fact you just stabbed me in the chest.

You know what, I'm not going to be petty bring that up right now. I will bring up your plan instead. Look. I get your plan. Kind of. You want me to be the ultimate warrior, and then have my child, and then kill me at my height so I am forever the ultimate warrior without any diminishing things, such as aging, having an off day, etc. I see the train of logic there. It's not good logic at all, but if I squint my brain I sorta see it. However, we have had sex once. Just the once. Maybe twice. You see that confusion is the important thing: I have done a lot of drugs recently. A staggering amount of drugs really. I've been going through them at an alarming rate, what with the fighting and hunting animals and stuff. How I haven't had multiple cardiac arrests astounds me. I've seen better veins on hobo corpses. And I know you know this, because you've given me half of them. Considering the amount of beating I've also been taking, with rampant drug abuse, and that one time I ran in a thorn bush groin first – I don't want to talk about that right now – I can say with some degree of certainty that my sperm count may not be at it's best right now. Most couples with healthy sperm don't get that lucky first time. So I'm just saying, killing me now? Perhaps a little too soon. Please don't take this for me being a typical guy, trying to get more sex out of you, I'm just offering constructive criticism to your plan and you probably should of had way more sex with me. Incidentally, I have pair of pink furry handcuffs in my loot sack, 'cos I'm guessing your the kinky type. Just an idea, right?

And if you don't get preggars this one time, you've got a problem, because you need a child to lead this clan, and you can't just grab another guy as I'm the only white guy here. No wait, that sounded bad when I said that out loud, I'm not implying any race is superior to the other, I am not trying being racist or anything, but you need the kid to look like me, right? It's just that every other white guy on these islands? So dead. I just came back from grinding that flamethrower achievement, and let's be honest, no mercenary is coming to this island to fill staff shortages where the last fifty people all died via generous application of flamethrower. It puts people off. That and they'll be no more staff hirings anyway, because I killed the head honcho and burnt down his base. I was very thorough in that regard, I'm afraid.

Besides, I'm not entirely sure that I'm this 'ultimate warrior' thing you want. I'm still a shit shot with a bow, for example. Half the knifing quests I've yet to do because I got bored when money stopped mattering. Also, I'd imagine an 'ultimate warrior' might of, you know, not let himself get stabbed. I imagine a real ultimate warrior would of hip-thrusted you over, disarmed you, thrown your knife killing another dude for funsies, made you orgasm and getting you instantly preggars to boot in one simultaneous move. That would have been badass. Instead I laid here and got stabbed like a chump. Be a dear and get me some medical attention, please? I'm not angry with you. We'll just call this a wacky misunderstanding and move on-ohwaitmyfriendsarealldead. Huh. Ah. Crap.

Also, woman, did you just seriously stab me in the chest? Really? You know what, I will be petty, now I am bringing it up. Not cool. Kinda dick move. Also, you must of noticed this before: this isn't the first time this has happened. We're kinda naked here, surely you can see the giant ass scar where Vaas did the same exact thing. Okay, fine, not the same exact thing, my penis wasn't in him at the time, for example, but you get the drift. And I killed the fuck out Vaas afterwards. So fine. Let's do this. You versus me. We'll call this little scratch a handicap.

Wait. Something just occurred to me.

Vaas. You said it was his destiny to lead the clan right? Your brother? To be head of the Rakyat? As... the ultimate warrior?

Was... was it meant to be Vaas here that you were riding?

Oh that explains so god damn much. You know what? Fuck this. I'm out.

Coming out of a sickness holiday, the best kind of holiday.

You know, the polite thing to do when you're on holiday and thus have little intention in doing anything remotely like work... is to at least give a heads up to everyone that you're on holiday and thus have no intention of doing anything remotely like work. I mean, I should of posted a 'Zing! No update this week!' and I'd been fine. But I didn't, so I got to spend the rest of my holiday doing the traditional British thing...

...being ill.

Whoo. Party animal.

I mean, it's the only logical explanation. I give no heads up, so the universe smites me with the sniffles. I'm not at work, so I don;t even have the pleasure of sneezing over everyone's keyboards when they've popped out of the office. I take being Patient Zero very seriously, you know.

So, I thought for starters I should deflect blame. Well, not blame, but effort. See this guy? You should pay attention. If my complaints about multiple tabloid tactlessness and stupidity are akin to an angry man ranting incoherently in rage, this a sophisticated professor lashing down scorn with well researched ease. I mean, he actually does research, unlike the half-assed link storms I do - which always ends up taking up all my time in the formatting. Ugh. So. You should check him out, so I can stop writing.

Go away. I'm being lazy.

God, fine. I tell you about my holiday. Jesus, you're needy.

So what did I do in my free time?

Played waaaay too much video games.

You know Citra, I can't help but notice every time we see each other you shoot me full of drugs or send me on some impossible quest. Or both. Perhaps we should re-evaluate our relationship?

I started Far Cry 3 to play a dumb shooty wizz bang game, and then it surprised me by being surprising intelligent in many areas. Well, I say, I started. I brought it on Steam... and then I had to get a Uplay account to play my fucking game. Oh god. The tedium. Well fucking done Ubisoft, for wasting my god damned time. I really wanted to spend the first thirty fucking minutes of my game playing time setting up an account. The only thing more annoying than this is that I should of known better because I've already written about this shit!

Not often to I get to explore a game that looks at me quizzically and says, 'You know you just killed enough people to depopulate Luxenbourg, right? You do know, that is not really appropiate nor healthy. Er. To you. It's a given it wasn't healthy to the dead guys.' It also had an interesting take on bosses, via the means of copious drug use. Far Cry 3 is all about copious drug use, or just chemically expanding your world view in general, to get some interesting boss fights.

I know I have those Rambo exploding arrows, but come on. This shit is ridiculous.

This was much appreciated, because this is where other 'realistic' games can fall down. Like Far Cry 3, Max Payne 3 tried a relatively realistic approach to damage – much more realistic in Max Payne 3 case, admittedly, but still comparable. However, this lead to a significant problem in regard to introducing new enemies:

Max Payne 3 Game: Well done. But what's this around the corner? A NEW ENEMY TYPE OMG!

Me: I shoot him in the face with my pistol.

MP3G: ...well, okay, that basically kills him.

Me: Cool.

MP3G: Yes, well, in fairness, you don't walk away from a bullet to the head. I mean, it would be silly, otherwise, right?

Me: Sure.

MP3G: Well, you handled that fine, but here comes his mate, the brand new scary enemy type!

Me: I shoot him in the face with my pistol.

MP3G: ...and you kill him. With one shot. Huh.

Me: Yep.

MP3G: Well hold on to your butts, I got a brand new...

Me: I shoot him in the face with my pistol.

MP3G: What, again? You know what, ignore that. You're a pretty good shot, aren't ya?

Me: Not really, actually. Slow-mo. Give me a lot of wiggle room. Next?

MP3G: Look over there! DUN DUN DU...

Me: I shoot him in the face with my pistol.

MP3G: Okay, I get you. Doing the 'one shot' thing. But how about, next time, just this one time, you don't shoot the guy in the face and so have a enemy that lasts longer then a second on screen?

Me: Nah. This tactic seems pretty solid.

MP3G: Fine. Well... I got a new enemy! Wearing body armour! With an assault rifle! And a helmet! Yeah!

Me: Does the helmet cover his face?

MP3G: Well, admittedly, no, it's just a visor there, we don't have bulletproof facial armour yet and...

Me: I shoot him...

MP3G: ...in the face with your pistol?

Me: Yes.

MP3G: GOD DAMN IT.

At least this time I actually get a boss, rather than a guy with a slightly bigger gun, and once you get up to an RPG, you're sort of out. Eventually, I completed / burned out of Far Cry 3, because I hit that game game harder then a tired Chris Brown joke. Who is a terrible person. I'll have a later write up of all the intelligent things that I was grateful that it did. Also I will criticize some of the stupid things. Because.

What was left of my boundless free time turned into a love / hate relationship with FTL: Faster Than Light.

OH FUCK YOU FTL. FUCK YOU IN THE TAINT.

I love this game.

I fucking hate this game.

A resource management, random generated content, Rogue like space simulation? Count me in.

JUST STOP FUCKING MURDERING ME. FUCK. SHIT. ALL. TO HELL.

The amount of times I have ridden into a fight, full health, bristling with guns, and whoops! Enemy teleported in borders! They took out your oxygen, now look, a missile just took out you shields, small fire in the weapon room, have fun fighting back! Argh. It doesn't help that I want to play with the whole 'teleporting murderous aliens' thing but I haven't unlocked the ship to do so, and getting the amount of money / crew you need to achieve this is a crap shoot with the randomly generated maps. But I can't stop playing. Because if I do, it'll have beaten me.

Gah.

I'm going to go back to watching Sherlock, and wishing season 3 would finishing filming and air already. Hurry up and return our hobbit, Peter Jackson. We need him to make some more wearisome gay jokes at.