Because it feels like I’ve been living under a rock…

October ended up being a very busy month for me. Besides the joys of homeownership requiring a lot of attention, I also got put in charge of training at work, which is pretty stressful for an introvert. Throw in Halloween commitments, and figuring out logistics for some things later this year, and it really does feel like I’ve been locked away for several weeks. Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to today’s word.

undercroft, noun – a brick-lined cellar

Learned from: The Letter (PC, Mac, Mobile)

Developed by Yangyang Mobile

Published by Yangyang Mobile (2017)

Given that it was October, I wanted to play at least one horror-themed game, and I’d picked up this visual novel on Steam during a sale awhile back. It plays out through the viewpoints of several characters, but the story centers around the sale of a huge mansion with a checkered past. Obviously, something is Very Very Wrong (TM), and you get to see the various characters get wrapped up in the supernatural events over the course of a…rather plodding plot. It starts out fairly strong, but there are some characters I honestly didn’t like enough to care whether they lived or died, and the story unfortunately spends as much time with them, as with more likable members of the cast. It also doesn’t help that the game is riddled with typos and grammatical errors, as well as the fact that it sometimes doesn’t seem to know what tone it wants to have (e.g. the property is the “Ermengarde Mansion,” which seems like it should indicate a lighthearted tone full of puns and memes…except they never really do anything with it. It just sits there like a turd in a punch bowl).

Anyway, the first character you play is the real estate agent who’s hoping to find a buyer for this problematic property. In showing one set of potential clients around, one of them notices a trapdoor in the kitchen that leads to the undercroft. But surely nothing horrible would ever happen in a dusty old wine cellar beneath a trapdoor, right?

letter

Belated happy Halloween, and all that. Sadly, this game is a lot less scary than this image would imply.

Have fun storming the castle!

By now, you’ve likely heard about the…situation with Blizzard. If you haven’t, here’s the short version: Following a championship match of Hearthstone, one of the players used his post-game interview time to deliver a political statement advocating for the liberation of Hong Kong from China. Blizzard had a fit, took back his prize money, and banned him from competition for a year–and essentially fired the commentators that just so happened to be on the stream at the time, even though they tried to get off-camera when they realized what was happening. (These bans were later scaled back to six months, but still…) In the following days, things only got worse, as Blizzard delivered conflicting press releases to Western and Eastern audiences, failed to enact the same penalties to streamers who did the same thing (because they were on Western streams), went against one of their own company tenets that everyone should have a voice, regardless of who they are or where they’re from, and in general have just kept digging themselves a deeper hole.

And yeah, I get that they’re a company, and profits are quite literally the bottom line. And China is a huge market. But the undeniable message here, is that Blizzard (an American company, mind you), is fine with denying people freedom of speech, in favor of the promise of profits from an authoritarian regime. People are understandably angry about this, I’d say. You might even say that Blizzard is under siege by its own (former?) fans. Which brings us to today’s word.

ballista, noun – a medieval siege weapon in the shape of a large crossbow

Learned from: Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (PC, Mac, Playstation, Sega Saturn)

Developed by Blizzard Entertainment

Published by Blizzard Entertainment (1995)

Once upon a time, Blizzard was a respectable company, making games full of heart, charm, and love of the medium. Warcraft II was a perfect example of this, with a ton of little details and Easter eggs (Christmas lights on the trees and buildings in the winter maps, units that would say funny things if you clicked on them a lot, etc.). And while the orcs and the humans had different looking units, most of them functioned the same. Goblin sappers and dwarven sappers both blew up the same amount of terrain; trolls threw axes and elves shot bows, but they had about the same range and damage; catapults and ballistae both flung heavy projectiles over about the same distance, etc. The handful of differences were in the magics wielded by each side, and that actually imbalanced the game pretty heavily in favor of the orcs, but it was still a fun game for its time…back when Blizzard actually cared about making things fun, instead of just profitable.

blizzard_china

I can’t take credit for this image, but it sums up the current situation quite nicely.

Stuck in an infinite loop

It’s been longer than I’d intended, since my last post, but life has gotten crazy as the joys of homeownership have reared their ugly heads, one after another. First, the process of refinishing my deck took weeks due to inclement weather, then there was a problem with my fireplace randomly turning itself on, and then I discovered a leak in the ceiling, after the most recent bout of rain. Just one bloody thing after another, seeming to never end. Which brings us to today’s word.

lemniscate, noun – a curve in the shape of a figure-eight, or infinity symbol

Learned from: AI: The Somnium Files (Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, PC)

Developed by Spike Chunsoft

Published by Spike Chunsoft (2019)

I don’t know when the months of August through October became the new holiday season for games, but holy crap, is there a lot of good stuff coming out in that span, this year! From big name blockbusters like Borderlands 3, to stylish takes on old formulas like Code Vein, to surprising niche titles like AI: The Somnium Files, there’s something for everyone, and much of it is pretty solid.

AI is a cyberpunk murder/mystery visual novel, in a subgenre that has a surprising number of entries, when you stop and consider it. (Observer, Read Only Memories, VA-11 HALL-A, Detroit: Become Human, etc.) And aside from maybe Read Only Memories, AI is the quirkiest one I’ve played so far. Think, mixing all of those other games with a dash of Deadly Premonition, and that’s kind of the atmosphere this one has going for it, and I’m really digging it so far. Anyway, you play as Date, an investigator for a secret branch of the police force, and the game starts you looking into a case that’s suspiciously similar to something that happened to Date himself, six years ago. The plot has you cooperating with your A.I. partner (who’s also your prosthetic left eye), to dive into people’s memories, to try and work through their mental locks that are hiding information on the case that they might not even realize they know. Things get pretty surreal, and kinda goofy at times, but it’s great.

One of the characters you run into in your investigation is an idol singer named Iris, who works for a company called Lemniscate, and manages to get herself tangled up in the case. I haven’t gotten far enough in the game to know for sure yet, but I’d wager that name wasn’t chosen at random, and that it has some deeper significance to the case–just like Iris herself very well might. But I’m juggling several different games right now, so it might be awhile before I find out for sure. What I can say with certainty though, is that if you like visual novels, narratives that are a bit off-kilter, the cyberpunk genre, or mysteries (or puns–your A.I. partner is an “A.I.-Ball” for example), you should probably check this one out. It’s been entirely overshadowed by bigger titles coming out around the same time, and it deserves more recognition.

Iris is the one on the right. Sweet, innocent, totally-not-conniving Iris…

The root of the problem

So, today is 9/11, and I debated whether or not to make a post. After all, it was a terrible event, the effects of which still resonate strongly with many people–myself included. It’s one of those “where were you when” moments, that people carry with them for the rest of their lives. But at the same time, it wouldn’t have felt right to say nothing at all, considering this year, an entire generation has been born, and gone through school since it happened. A generation who’s too young to even have witnessed the towers coming down, and might still be asking themselves what would drive people to do something like that. One could argue there are many reasons, but I’d posit that a strong contender is hatred of the Other. Which brings us to today’s word.

odium, noun – intense hatred or contempt

Learned from: Odium (PC, Mac)

Developed by Metropolis Software, Hyperion Entertainment (Linux)

Published by Monolith Productions (Windows), Linux Game Publishing (Linux), e.p.i.c. Interactive (Mac) (1999)

Known in other regions as Gorky 17, Odium is kind of what you’d get if you took an early Resident Evil, and made it into an isometric, turn-based strategy game. You control a team of commandos, sent to investigate some weird goings-on at a top-secret research lab in Poland, only to find it’s been overrun by biomechanical horrors. It wasn’t a terribly good game, but it was a deceptively difficult one. Even the early monsters frequently hit you for at least half a health kit’s worth of damage, which doesn’t seem too bad at first, when supplies are plentiful. But soon you’re entering combats with your troops at half health, just to try and conserve what few healing items you have left. It doesn’t help that new (harder-hitting) monster types are introduced in almost every battle, giving you even less time to breathe and find your footing.

I never got far enough to discover why the game was renamed Odium for the US release, but the word seemed fitting. Hatred of the Other stems from ignorance and tribalism. When the only people you feel you can trust are from your own group, that tends to engender a sense that anyone outside that group is somehow untrustworthy/unclean/evil. And sadly, 18 years later, rather than bringing all of us together, one need only to look at the political climate in this country to see that tribalism has only gotten worse. Except this time, it’s from within our own population, instead of from without.

I know it sounds vaguely hippie-ish to say that a nation can’t survive if its citizens are at each other’s throats, but we’ve seen what happens when that sort of fear-mongering takes hold elsewhere in the world. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how prolonged exposure to that sort of thing will end up within our own borders.

A wise, green alien once said that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. And despite Yoda being a muppet, he’s right; hatred leads to all sorts of terrible things, like flying planes into buildings, or driving cars into crowds of people, or shooting up schools. So, on the anniversary of this particular tragedy, I implore you to remember it by trying to rise above what caused it. There’s a lot of shit wrong with this world, but hating people of a different religion, or race, or political leaning isn’t going to do a damn thing to make it better.

odium

Just like slapping an edgy title on a mediocre game won’t make it any less disappointing.

Perhaps the most important post I’ll make.

I originally started this project, because I was tired of video games being blamed for social ills, and I wanted to show that if anything, they can enrich people’s lives, not degrade them. This past weekend, there were not one, but two mass shootings, within a span of 24 hours. Once again, we’ve got politicians (specifically, Republican, Kevin McCarthy) blaming video games, instead of the obvious problem that it’s easier to get a gun than a driver’s license. Or a passport. Or a liquor license for a restaurant. Or…you get the point. But it’s easier to blame video games–and do nothing about the problem–than it is to pull away from the teat of gun lobby donations and actually try to fix things. Which brings us to today’s word.

guile, noun – manipulative cunning, deceit, duplicity

Learned from: Street Fighter II (Arcade, and pretty much every console released since the ’90s)

Developed by Capcom

Published by Capcom (1991)

Looking back, I have to wonder if it was an intentional move on Capcom’s part, to name one of the American characters in Street Fighter II after a term that essentially means “untrustworthy”. Guile is an Air Force major, best known for his sonic boom ranged attack. He’s a character I never gravitated toward, but he’s got his fans.

…and I’m finding it hard to stay on-topic with game-Guile, as opposed to why I chose the word guile this time around. I try not to be overly political on here, but I can’t ignore this subject–it’s the reason this blog exists, after all. Numerous studies have been conducted on whether video games lead to real-life violence, and the results keep coming back the same: they don’t.

But those studies appeal to logic, which the politicians and public figures who keep pushing for making video games a scapegoat don’t care about. They care about emotional appeals, because when objective reality fails you, what else do you have? I mean, who cares if all the evidence shows that violent themes in games are about as “dangerous” as violent themes in movies, or rock music, or D&D, or “provocative” literature–little Billy turned to a life of crime, because he played Grand Theft Auto! So, fine. Let’s go with a personal anecdote, designed to pluck at the heartstrings, and lull to sleep the mind’s critical thinking faculties. I’m good at games; I can play this one, too.

I’ve been gaming since I was about five years old, when I got a hand-me-down Intellivision from one of my cousins. Primitive though it is by today’s standards, there were still plenty of games that included depictions of violence: from killing other humanoid-looking programs with frisbees in Tron: Deadly Discs, to fighting monsters in Tower of Doom, to punching out other human players in Boxing, I was exposed to virtual violence young. And it never really stopped. From the bare-knuckle brawls of Street Fighter II, to the spine-ripping finishing moves of Mortal Kombat; from blowing away demons with a shotgun in the original Doom, to feeding them their own hearts in the 2016 remake; from 20-player kill streaks online in Unreal Tournament 2004, to endless nights murdering people to protect checkpoints in Overwatch, I have bathed in enough virtual blood to fill an ocean, and taken enough virtual lives (both AI and from human players) to build a mountain range. By the “reasoning” of people like Kevin McCarthy, after decades of constant exposure to this, I should be one of history’s greatest monsters.

I have never even thrown a punch at someone.

I was bullied throughout most of my school-age years, because I was the quiet, pale, skinny kid with terrible social anxiety, who preferred to be left alone with books. I don’t want to get into the details of my home life at that time, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t a walk in the park either, and contributed strongly to my anxiety and awkwardness at school. Looking back through the lens of recent history, I’d be considered a prime candidate to shoot up my school.

And after Columbine happened, that’s exactly how people started to treat me. Here I was, the spitting image of one of the pale, skinny, loner kids who liked violent video games, and killed a bunch of their classmates. Almost overnight, the bullying stopped. People who noticed me in the hall tended to move out of the way. I’m pretty sure even some of the teachers were looking at me differently. You might think this would’ve come as something of a relief, but it didn’t. In some ways, it was worse than what came before, because I was no longer being called names out in the open–instead, people were thinking much worse things about me, and my imagination was left to fill the void of everything they weren’t saying.

So, I just kept on going more or less as I normally did, but even less sure of how to go about interacting with the people around me. Being a source of fear for everyone around you is only empowering to a sociopath; when it happened to me, it stung in a way I didn’t know was possible.

The fact that nothing has changed, either in legislation or in the common narrative in the twenty years–TWENTY YEARS–that followed stings even worse. My virtual body counts have risen to countless numbers, across hundreds of games, and I’ve still never physically harmed a soul. As these mass shootings keep happening (and keep happening, and keep happening…) at schools, movie theaters, festivals, night clubs, and on, and on, I’ve found my sense of shock and horror is steadily turning to frustration and incredulity. Because for more than half my life, something I love has repeatedly been named as a scapegoat, because those in power are too cowardly, lazy, and complacent to confront the actual problem, and people keep dying because nothing is being done. The common thread in all these killings isn’t video games, any more than previous atrocities were the result of violent movies, or D&D, or any other convenient counterculture pariah du jour. The common thread is unstable people having easy access to guns–often with modifications that serve no defensible purpose aside from the intent to commit mass murder. It’s not rocket science, you unconscionable, Congressional fuckwits.

guile-sfiv

This is Guile. Guile is a major in the Air Force who fights terrorists with his bare fists, and has theme music that goes with everything. Guile doesn’t actually exist, but he still manages to somehow be a better American and human being than the useless, craven shitbag “representatives” we have in Congress, who refuse to actually do anything to keep their citizens safe. Be like Guile. Stand up for what’s right, in whatever way you can. Even if it’s just through an exasperated post on a blog with double-digit followers.

Right in front of my eyes

Ever have one of those moments where you suddenly discover there’s a specific term for something you’ve been aware of for years? It happened to me, just the other day.

hypermetropia, noun – farsightedness

Learned from: Crossing Souls (PS4, Mac, PC, Switch)

Developed by Fourattic

Published by Devolver Digital (2018)

It’s been about twenty years since I was diagnosed with being farsighted, but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard the technical term for the condition until now. Maybe the optometrist didn’t want to worry young me with an imposing-sounding medical term like that, or something. The world will never know.

As for its usage in the game, first, a bit of backstory. Crossing Souls is an attempt to cash in on the ’80s nostalgia sparked by pop culture phenomena like Stranger Things and Ready Player One, and it’s…not as successful. It starts off okay, with a freak storm knocking out power in a small, suburban town during summer vacation, and in the midst of it all, a group of friends stumbles across a magical artifact. But then the cracks start to show.

It’s as if the folks at Fourattic felt they needed to reference all of the 1980s, often times directly and without purpose. Shady government types have cordoned off a house to try and steal back the artifact–time for an E.T. reference! Simon was a thing in the ’80s, so we need to work that in–no, it doesn’t need to make sense that you have to beat an undead bus driver at a game of it…or that when you win, an inexplicable machine pours lava on him–it needs to be there! And of course, there’s a reclusive Chinese pawn shop owner, straight out of Gremlins. Which brings us to today’s word.

The pawn broker is in possession of a key that he won’t give up, so you need to steal it from him. In order to do that, you need to distract him with increasingly absurd requests for things you ostensibly do want to buy, so that he’ll disappear into the back long enough for you to swipe the key. One of those things is, well…I’ll let the screenshot speak for itself.

hypermetropia

It’s not often I catch a shot of one of these words in the wild, so to speak.

Totally not a political statement

It’s Independence Day, and as such, I found myself presented with a variety of words I could feature, from words about empire-building, or rulers, or even just related to how bloody hot it is. In the end, I chose…

braggadocio noun – The annoying and/or overblown talk of someone trying to come across as braver than they truly are.

Learned from: Shin Megami Tensei IV (3DS)

Developed by Atlus

Published by Atlus (2013)

Toward the end of the game (at least, along the path I took), you run into a demon named Akira, who wants you to help him take over Tokyo. However, the old adage “the smaller the dog, the louder its bark” definitely applies here, as you quickly discover this guy is a terrible coward. The rest of your party even comments on his braggadocio, the first time this guy hides behind you, and expects you to fight his battles for him. Because those are exactly the qualities we all want in a leader, right?

Or, you know, ordering a military parade with tanks rolling down city streets, when the greatest risk you’ve ever put yourself in is swinging a nine iron. Things like that.

akira

At least Akira’s got good hair.

I’ve been living life, like I play Risk

You may have noticed that I dropped off the face of the Earth, recently, after the spate of live tweets I did for E3 (and I never did get to the Nintendo Direct, or PC Gaming Show). In the time since, I’ve found myself pulled in all sorts of directions at once, both at work and at home. They’re not all bad by any means, and a sizable portion of them, I brought upon myself, but between contemplating going for a promotion at work, learning an unfamiliar tabletop RPG so I could join a game a friend was setting up, trying to get people together for my own game I want to run, diving headfirst into my backlog of books and games, and finding a surprising number of evening events, I’ve spread myself thin. Which, in a roundabout way, brings me to today’s word.

druthers, noun – One’s leanings or preferences toward a subject.

Learned from: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon (Playstation 2)

Developed by Atlus

Published by Atlus (2008)

First off, yes, that’s the full title of the game. Whereas most of the Shin Megami Tensei (MegaTen for short) titles have turn-based combat, the Devil Summoner series set itself apart by being more action-oriented. It takes some getting used to, trying to manage the demons you’ve summoned on the battlefield, while keeping your own character alive, but it really grew on me, the more I played this series. And the action isn’t all that set it apart from its contemporaries.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen another RPG set in 1920s Japan, let alone one whose story features underground insect people, a talking cat who used to be your human partner, demons, and a spunky female reporter who gets caught up in the middle of it all. Throw in an amazing soundtrack, and a plot that tackles surprisingly deep subjects such as tradition vs. modernity, sacrifice, and self-preservation and you’ll start to understand why Atlus is one of my favorite game developers of all time.

As for the word of the day, at one point the protagonist gets asked what his druthers are, regarding one of the plot points. Choices matter in this game, and depending on how you approach things, you’ll get different endings–another hallmark of the MegaTen franchise as a whole. And to tie this all in to the intro, I need to consider what my druthers are, and narrow my focus regarding all the stuff I have going on. Because I know from (extensive) experience what happens when I keep myself spread too thin for too long, in Risk. But hey, realization is the first step and all that, right? See you next time!

devil_summoner_2

Writing buddy

As I type this, my cat is curled up on the back of the couch near my head, snoring. This entry goes out to her.

grimalkin, noun – A domestic cat–particularly, an old female cat.

Learned from: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (Playstation 3, Arcade, XBox 360)

Developed by Arc System Works

Published by Aksys Games (2008)

For fighting games, the BlazBlue series has always had a rather fleshed out story mode. Granted, after a couple entries, it stops making much sense, but it certainly is deep. A lot of the characters have extensive backstories that color their interactions with one another. Ragna and Jin are extreme examples of feuding siblings, Litchi and Arakune were lovers back when Arakune was still human (at least, in Litchi’s eyes), and the once-great hero, Hakumen (who’s now a living suit of armor), hates the mad scientist, Kokonoe. Kokonoe also happens to be a catgirl (because, Japan), which has earned her the derisive nickname of “Grimalkin” from Hakumen. He doesn’t seem to hate any of the other cat-people in the game though, so at least he’s not a racist.

kokonoe

I should point out that Kokonoe has a split tail, technically making her a nekomata: a Japanese mythological creature that’s essentially a house cat that’s lived for a very long time. So, maybe she’s older than she looks.

Even a cold can be good for something

As the title suggests, I’m sick right now. Have been, for about half a week or so, with a very irritating head cold. It started with my throat hurting, and my voice dropping an octave, then only coming out as a croaky whisper, like a mummy that just woke up after a millennium-long nap in the desert sun. It’s since migrated (somewhat) from my throat to my nose, and if you compressed all the tissues I’ve used back into solid wood, you could probably build, if not a house, then at least a garden shed. All of which brings us to today’s word.

phlegm, noun – The buildup of thick mucous in the respiratory passages.

Learned from: Xenophobe (Atari 7800, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Lynx, NES, ZX Spectrum)

Developed by Bally Midway

Published by Bally Midway (1987)

Xenophobe was, at its heart, a ripoff of Aliens. It’s a side-scrolling action game, where you have to travel from space station to space station, clearing each one of an alien infestation before the self-destruct sequence counts down. All in all, it’s a decently fun game, with a good variety of weapons and monsters–from little ones that just crawl along, to ones that roll into balls, to the big ones that spit phlegm at you from a distance.

I know it was phlegm and not acid, because the instruction manual (remember those?) said so. As a kid of about seven or eight, I of course knew the term “snot,” but I knew “mucous” as well; phlegm was new to me, though. So much so, that I thought this weird amalgamation of letters was a typo (which weren’t really uncommon in manuals at the time). So, I asked my father–pronouncing the word wrong, I’m sure–and boom, I had a new entry in my burgeoning vocabulary. As well as a hilarious mental image of a hulking alien beast killing your character by covering them in snot. (Hilarious to seven-year-old me, at least.)

Fun fact: Xenophobe also taught me a bit of the Greek alphabet, as each station was Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc. I won’t be including those as entries here, since they’re just letters, not full-fledged words, but I think it’s neat that this simple run & gun shooter taught me so many varied things.

xenophobe

Hideous alien hellbeasts–you know, for kids!