fractured reality

I read the news and sometimes it is hard not to despair.

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So here’s a question:

Are there people somewhere who play these games and run out of ammunition ever?

I finished the FEAR single player game yesterday, and I noticed that I never once ran low on ammo. Hell, I might have to go back and play through a few missions again just to see what certain weapons *did*, because I thought that the fact that the gun only came with 10 bullets meant it was too precious to fire. I thought I might need all ten rounds to defeat some bad-ass just around the corner, but the bad-ass never showed up. He was off at the movies because he missed his invitation to the bad-ass showdown in the basement of the abandoned warehouse.

I submit that I am part of a sub-section of FPS gamers who were ravaged and brutalized by Resident Evil 2 back in the 90s, where every goddamn round of ammo was destined for a specific creature. The trauma resulting from having to ration every single bullet like it was your last spawned a breed of gamers who subsequently played through the entirety of Half Life 2 without firing a gun bigger than the MP5 (if you forget that you *had* to use rockets on the gun-ships), who played through Doom3 with the machine gun and the Relic only, and who eventually will play through FEAR without discovering that that particle gun TURNS PEOPLE INTO CHARRED SKELETONS WITH ONE SHOT. And even though it’s the single greatest weapon since the Rise of the Triad “flame wall” gun, you STILL won’t use it because it has WAY TOO FEW ROUNDS. And just when you think maybe you could stand to fire some of the 80 bullets you’ve stockpiled, they TAKE THE GODDAMN GUN FROM YOU IN A DREAM SEQUENCE ARGHRGHERG IFDTU %@T&@ BBGHE DF gack. uck. Son of a.

Thus it is my recommendation that we firebomb Capcom’s headquarters. Thank you.

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I know this is not news, but I just saw a clip in which he is talking about severe weather. He was talking with a climatologist who basically was telling Bill about the fact that Global Warming isn’t really the driving force behind this intensification of storms, that it goes on this 30-year cycle, etcetera, and although Bill did act like he understood what was being said, he then mentioned the tsunami in India as an indicative phenomenon, and indeed, multiple videoclips were being played in the background of the destruction done by last year’s tsunami.

Um, hello? No. The tsunami was not a meteorologic effect; if you’ll recall, it was caused by a huge fucking earthquake under the fucking ocean. It had nothing to do with Global Warming and nothing to do with the oceanic conyevor belt cycle, or Atlantic oscillation whassis.

Grr.
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So my copies of FEAR and Quake 4 arrived yesterday and I loaded them up. My loyalty to id was overcome by my curiosity, however, and I’ve only played FEAR so far.

The game isn’t *extremely* pretty, but it’s not ugly either. The shading and pixel effects are pretty nice. The game is suspenseful and somewhat creepy too. I’ve survived several Resident Evils and a slew of other horror games, so I’m not jumping nearly as much as is probably intended.

The area where this game shines (so far) is enemy AI. From the get-go you are in conflict with enemy soldiers (not exactly a new device for Sierra, who published Half Life, etc) who work in SWAT-team-like squads to bring you down. At one point, I turned a corner and kill two of a squad of four, and ducked back around the corner to reload. While I did so, I heard one of the soldiers approaching on the metal catwalk on which we were fighting. It was as I crept up to the corner that I noticed that one of the surviving soldiers had leapt off the balcony and had actually snuck beneath me. Just as I formed the thought, “They’re trying to flank me,” he lobbed a grenade up onto the catwalk and the other soldier popped around the corner, opening fire.

Nice.

In addition to the AI, the environmental interaction is pretty nice as well. After you finish a good fire-fight, windows have been shattered, smoke is still rising from cubicle walls where bullets have travelled, fluorescent lights swinging overhead. It’s just as you’re admiring the carnage that you’ll hear radio chatter from the surviving units: “Team two, advance your position!” “No fucking way!”

And then you’ll realize it’s midnight and you have to work in the morning. Feh.

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This weekend was terrific. Watched View to a Kill on Friday, played some WoW, went shopping for props for costumes for Saturday. The party Saturday was much fun, good to see and hang out with the boys some more, enjoyed the miracles of FIRE and alcohol and so forth.

Spent Sunday recovering, playing WoW, eating pizza and pancakes.

Late to work this morning. Happy. Onward!
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