"It was the Kind of Kiss that made me know I was Never so Happy in My Whole Life."

I long for the old Saturday night Halo parties at Jeff’s. It made seeing everyone so much easier. There’s hardly anything worse than feeling like you have to see people out of a sense of obligation. On those nights, everyone fought for a seat, got loaded on either Mountain Dew or beer and played for a few hours. Later, Jeff got a girlfriend, got transferred out of the store, a guy started working at Food Lion who threw “real” parties and as for myself, I just really got tired of playing Halo period.

While I do not miss Halo at all, I miss being around my friends like that. It is so hard for me to balance my life in such a way to where it isn’t always about games. What I mean by that is life always comes before games. This is something I learned when I transferred to a different Food Lion to once again work with Jeff. Where as before, when me and Jeff worked together, all we talked about was games, when we were working together most recently more important things needed talking about.

Jeff has his own issues and it isn’t my place to talk about them. Except he felt it was my place to hear about them, which was nice, because it reminded me of why I enjoy the man’s company in the first place. For me, it was the way I felt the old Food Lion was destroying my life. And how I am going back to school to do something that while I am not too good at, I love to do. And how lonely I get some nights when old friends neglect to answer instant messages and I play games not out of the love I have for them, but out of the boredom of not having anything else to do.

And one particular night at this store, we sat outside fifteen minutes before we were going to close it down. A very nice girl who worked there drove up with a new dog she had received as a college graduation present and sat down beside us. Jeff told her the story about how we one time tied the doors of the old meat department together so when the manager would try to kick them the next day as he always did, the doors would fly back and smack him in the face. The plan worked. He followed the story up with, “I have known this guy here for a very long time, and I am really happy we are working together again.” And I had the realization I was alive, and stories like these hold me back to the past while at the exact same time propelling me head first into a new life.

It was the same way last Wednesday night when I went to a bar/club with a couple friends. I wasn’t going to go, but then I thought about how I could use it in some way in the story I am writing for a game. I didn’t have a good time. Not because of the reasons others would accuse me of, that I am unsocial and nervous, and need to get over my own self imposed ideas of how not cool I am. The truth is, it just wasn’t fun. I told my friends I wanted to leave because I came to the idea of driving way into Bristol to see an old friend of mine. It was about two in the morning when I started my thirty-five minute drive, and I was extremely disappointed when he wasn’t home. But if the guy isn’t home after three in the morning it means at some other time late at night I can go see him and he might not be asleep.

One night I am not going to feel like playing games and will want to sit with someone and reminisce about a past that defines me. I have that opportunity. And I am thankful.

I felt compelled last Thursday to drive up Barnes and Noble to buy the new issue of Edge magazine. The reason I use the word compelled is because of the spontaneous way I got ready and left. I was entirely happy sitting in my room playing Final Fantasy X, but the thought of reading a new Edge seemed great. I put the new White Stripes cd (which I adore) in the player and drove up to the bookstore. When I walked in, I caught a glimpse of the woman who was going to be ringing me up and froze in place. My first real entry here talked about a girl who worked at a game store. I have a shelf of games I bought that I will never play because of this girl. One could reasonably assume I would now have a shelf full of book I would never read because the girl that stopped me in my tracks happened to be the same shy, pale skinned girl with wire framed glasses that at one time worked at a certain Game Stop.

I make one trip to Barnes and Noble a month, to pick up Edge, a smartly written magazine about videogames. The next time I walk into the store will be a month from last Thursday because when she ringed me up I spotted a wedding band on her ring finger. And Saturday, when I said goodbye to relatives from Virginia, it really hit me how my stupid crushes mean so much to me. I walked away, got into my car and started crying, not because of this girl, or this other girl or any girl in particular. But because of myself, and how I am the boy who has crushes on simple girls, and I am the boy who cries when the guy gets the girl at the end of the movie. And although it makes me destined to be by myself, at least for the time being and the foreseeable future, I love that I am the boy who cries at the end of the movie.

And driving home Saturday, listening to the new White Stripes cd I immediately started thinking of how I could turn the feelings and emotions I was feeling into a piece about videogames so I can post it on the site. But there is no way to do that except to mention that games are my preferred hobby in my life. And I plan on one day making a career out of writing about games in a way that is entirely my own. And these small life epiphanies I have make my life more full. And while games probably don’t factor too much into these things I write, they do act as the backbone and the “setting” in which I structure what I write. And by no means is this good writing in any form, but it is honest. And honesty goes a long way.

wes

"I'm Bitter? Who's Drunk and Yelling at a Dead Woman."

I find it terribly sad that this is the last season of Six Feet Under. Everyone has something they consider special to them, whether it be a certain record, or movie or whatever. Six Feet Under is special to me. I was talking to Tim about the show one night while we were playing Halo 2 co-op when it dawned on me what made it so special. It celebrates life in a way that only something about death can. Celebrating life is a major theme of art, or it should be. And only when looking at the negative aspects of life (death) can it be shown for the beautiful thing it is.

*******

The most surreal moment of my life happened a week and a day before Tim and I sat in my room playing Halo 2 co-op. For nearly fifty yards I carried a casket to a gravesite. The person inside the casket was my granddad. His death wasn’t a surprise. A week before I carried the casket, I made myself go see him at the nursing home. What I saw lying in this hospital bed wasn’t a person. It was a shell of someone I used to know. I have known people who have died. I have seen dead bodies before. But I had never seen anyone who was dieing.

My grandfather wasn’t nice to people in life. In many ways one could say he wasn’t nice to people in death. Only fifteen people showed up at the service including family. No flowers were sent. Three of the people who carried the casket had never met the man, but did so out of their own good will. And I thank them for it. No receiving of friends. Only a service held on the grassy hill of a cemetery. I learned two important lessons at the cemetery. The first is, you reap what you sow in the time you spend here. And the second tries hard to negate the first but; if forgiveness doesn’t exist at least in death, then forgiveness doesn’t exist.

*******

I almost put down Grim Fandango before I really even started the game. I couldn’t grasp that you controlled the game with the keyboard instead of the mouse, which says a lot about my idiosyncrasies with games. I don’t know why I picked the game back up when Will gave me a PC controller but I did, and it just so happened that my next stop was the Land of the Living section.

A lot of people (a writer at Gamespy) say they always point to ICO or Rez when people ask them about artistic achievements in games. I can’t say I blame them. Both games have artistic merits. I on the other hand will forever point out Grim, but more specifically the brief Land of the Living section. As Mr. Calavera, you arrive at what looks like some form of 50’s hamburger joint (or maybe café?) dressed as the grim reaper looking to carry away someone to the Land of the Dead. Everything is distorted. The color takes a washed out look. The living take the form of a Picasso portrait, all angular and disfigured. I was taken with the game from that point on.

Everyone who has played Grim Fandango will talk about the many funny sequences of the game. Tonight I was sitting at a bar telling a friend that I consider my inability to do anything right as part of my charm, except it isn’t charming in any form. Me attempting to “review” Grim Fandango is no different. The game made me laugh, a lot. But the humor isn’t what makes the game memorable. It is the underlying sadness. I am not going to go into the plot details, but what did Manny do in life to not even be able to arrive at the final resting place at all? I mean, the entirety of the game isn’t getting yourself there, but to make sure poor Meche gets there because she deserves it. How could someone who seems so considerate of others in death, do something so bad in life to have to stick around the Land of the Dead so he could sell travel packages?

Thank God the game never answers that question. I don’t want to know. I just know that Manny is in love with Meche. And I know that you can laugh about love, and put yourself in some silly situations because of love, but love is a real human emotion. Love makes us alive. It can give us a sense of purpose. It can hurt, and make us feel sad as well. I like to think of Grim not as a Tim Shaffer game but as a Wes Anderson movie. Something funny and sweet, but complicated with an underlying sadness.

And Grim is an artistic achievement because you play someone who is dead, looking for someone else who is dead. And in my time with the game I felt alive, because one day I am going to be a shell of a person someone used to know. I will have regrets, and I will have cherished memories and these make me into the person I am right now, and into the person I will become. And this realization gives me comfort because I understand no matter how sad and lonely I get, I have something to celebrate. All of this comes from the art I relate with to enrich my life. I need these reminders from time to time. I need to be reminded that each day I have is a gift, and something as small as seeing an old friend is significant, and although awkward, it is beautiful. Six Feet Under serves as a reminder. So does Grim Fandango.

*******

Because I was a pallbearer, when we arrived at the cemetery, I had to split up with my family. I was so nervous I was shaking as I took my spot beside the Hearst. The director opened up the back and slid the casket outside. I took a hold of the handle and turned and to be honest I don’t remember a whole lot about the fifty yard walk except for one thing. My grand father excepted Christ before he died, which according to a specific book I believe in means I know he didn’t meet Manny Calavera when he passed away. But as I was walking very carefully so I wouldn’t step on someone else’s grave I kept wondering what kind of travel package my grandfather qualified for. And when I sat the casket down at the grave site I smiled, because helping someone get to their final resting place was the most honorable thing I have ever done in my life.

wes

(A quick apology to nobody in particular. I meant this to be so much better, but on the same hand I can't bring myself to delete it. It is hard, and it sucks, but I am going to have to let this stand as it is.)

Grand Tortilla Fore!

I went to Savannah about three weeks ago. We unpacked our bags across a uniquely shaped condo. It was built as if the equally sized rooms were stacked on each other, and then fell down. After some cooler-to-refrigerator unpacking, I unpacked the Dreamcast the PS2. The Dreamcast was a reserve unit, in case the city didn’t offer anything to me. My first priority was Kingdom Hearts, yet another replay of Snake Eater, and GT4 for the odd 15 to 30 minutes of various transition moments. Being away from a home for several days, I had to make sure I wouldn’t run out of options.

Concerning the city, I fell in love. That’s all that needs to be said. I didn’t find much time for any of the games. After being there for a couple of nights, I did have a burst of the ever constant insomnia. After everyone was asleep, I plugged in the PS2 and blew into the controllers input. Now, insomnia may not be the right word for issue. I was tired, but not drifting. My body ached from walking most of the day. Weariness would hit soon with a strong blow, but not yet. I had (the word had in this instance, does not mean “once owned”. Instead it means, I have this friend who doesn’t come around anymore. I’ve said before I’m a high contrast person, friends or enemies, so naturally it’s easy to go dead to me.) a buddy that used to tell me that he hated to go to sleep, because he may miss something, paraphrased of course. I understand and live by the same motto, although I’m much less orthodox. There’s always something that can be going. Those moments that make you, could be happening those times you’re lying in a bed. So I sorted through the three games and in perfect human nature, crippled my gaming priorities.

Kingdom Hearts. I’ve put about 14 minutes into the game so far. I’m no stranger to RPG’s. I’ve got at least 2 more hours of in game tutorials. I could see it already, and I didn’t like the possible outcome. The outcome of getting past a reasonable amount of the tutorials, coupled with actual application, only to come across cut scenes and general narrative that would guide me to the next objective. And then quit, right as I begin traveling towards the next objective, save and shut the system. Then you return to the game a week later, and you’re not sure where to go, or what you’re actually doing to further the story. Then you replay your couple of hours skipping elements of the game that you do remember, looking for one stray sentence to guide you to an objective. Clearly I needed more than a couple of hours to start the game.

Snake Eater. Now while I’m huge fan of the game, it’s one that doesn’t pander to casual replays. Moreover, I’ve decided to start a new save file, and kick up the difficulty. With that of course, I’m worried about the food that I collect rotting, and then ending up in a difficult situation later. With Kingdom Hearts I needed a large down payment of time in the present, Snake Eater asked for an investment of time in the future. You can play a little today, but you have to promise to play at least a little tomorrow too. There are ways around it, but I don’t work that way. Which is why I had to take down Supply Lines in San Andreas, even though it didn’t lead you to more objectives, it pushed a back story forward. If you can get at least a cut scene out of something, then in my mind it’s a must.

So I dropped the GT4 disc into the console, and sat down in a chair that looked like a tea cup, but interestingly enough, moved like a tea cup ride. Long story short, I played for 2 hours. The last hour was spent making my own statement in the game. Which is that expensive cars suck, and the people who drive them, should drive them off cliffs and land covering bridges exclusively. I have a rather big beef with the rich, and your first step to entering, or at least entertaining the bourgeois life style is buying a car. That way, when you pull into the mall, you don’t have to explain to the patrons that you’re better than them. You can just point to your car and show them. My statement was made by putting a red fin on the back of all my cars, and changing all my wheels to green. This made me feel a little bit better morally, as now all of my cars look like they were custom built by these fine citizens.

Here’s the reason I stopped, and I haven’t picked up the game since. Finally the meat, you’ve been digging through you’re pasta for. I’m attracted to the game because it allows me to create “my baby”. All your hard work would seem to lead you to specific car, that was made precisely for you and only you. After playing for about thirty minutes, I realized however, that unintentionally the game plays out like a linear story driven game. Only without a story. You buy a car, an then race it, and make some money, and then buy the fastest car available to enter the next race. And relatively, it’s the same car for everyone. You’re gonna have people like me that want to keep a couple cars around, that for whatever reason, define themselves, but there’s no reward for it. With all the pissing and moaning about the lack of online play, people obviously want to race one another. But it takes a lot of it away for me, to bring my Corvette (with red fins, and green wheels) to a server filled with other Corvettes. The ideal I’m looking for has been used countless times in mech games. These games have weapons that are, on a certain level, better than others. However you build your mech to suit your needs, by which weapons you can manipulate the best. As the games have progressed, gamers can fulfill their vanity needs by customizing the appearance. When I played, I was better with a heavy and slow mech, and I would play against people who chose different mechs to suit them. Some times I’d best them, and often they’d destroy me before I even picked them up on radar. When you add something like complete realistic simulation to a game, it does have to give off these traits I’m railing against. I can’t say I like them, but they have to be there. Just like the rich bastards. Customization is a great thing, and I hope to see more of it. But is it even customization when you follow a very directed path to achieve a rank “bestest”. (that's clearly the well illustrated "bestest jig".)

For the record, I know that word “fin” is the wrong word for the item I’m noting, but it was for the best, as it was edited down from “that shit that kids put on their trunks to get into car clubs.”

Love,
-tim