Escape from Blogging Bay (Part 1)

So I'm writing this on my first semester break, unnervingly far away from the internet and any subsequent online addictions e.g. Reddit, Redtube and League of Legends/Lagers. Just like my summer holidays, this tends to result in me catching up on a few sorely missed hours of singleplayer gaming. I transform into the epitome of an antisocial, curtain closing, beard-farming, stinking assed slob. The fact that I live a hop and a skip away from a river and a beach, and I’ve still managed to cultivate a healthy/unhealthy beer belly is testament to just how slobbish I am capable of becoming. I’m also a media whore. You’re gonna hear that from me a lot. When Hollywood makes a movie, I watch it. When Ubisoft releases a game, I chew the disc into a fine powder and then rub the dust into my eyes because that’s just how fucking fast I want to absorb all of that gaming magic. So by that token, when Starbreeze Studios develop a spin-off game based on Vin Diesel’s “Riddick” movie character, you can bet your ass that I’ll eventually get around to playing it at least five to seven years after the release date. And damn if I won’t enjoy it.

That last part wasn’t a joke, just in case you still can’t tell that when Sally Sarcasm says no she actually means no. When I describe myself as a media whore, I simply mean to suggest that I’m prepared to give the overwhelming majority of media products a fighting chance. To be fair, I also have a habit of dredging up whatever redeeming qualities I possibly can from the dross that I often subject myself to. On that note, I’m not here to argue semantics, but I bloody enjoyed the two Riddick movies – Pitch Black and Chronicles. Credibility be fucking damned! I’m a firm believer that movies and games are made to entertain, and frankly, I found Riddick to be the incarnation of bad ass. The modern Rambo if you will – less brood and more cheesy dry wit – less misunderstood good guy and more sociopathic antihero. Not that Butcher Bay needs me to spew excuses and stammer out some sort of half assed validation. I’ll bleach these muddy waters right here and now, it’s a damn good game.

Less rant and more write. I started enjoying Butcher Bay right out of the gate. It definitely helped that I’m one heavy night on whiskey away from getting Vin’s shiny bald head tattooed on my back, but the fact remains that he has just the sort of speak-when-your-spoken-to, wise-cracking type of charisma that is perfect for a modern FPS protagonist. The game kind of saunters through the first few sections on Riddick’s reputation alone, assuming that we won’t take his radiating ass-kickery for granted. I could mention the combat and star-studded voice acting, the unnervingly bare-bones stealth mechanics that seem as startling and unpredictable as shit, but these aren’t what really stood out to me. The realization that I was really enjoying myself hit me like a hammer to my unkempt head, when I noticed that I didn’t mind being lost. I know right, what the hell does that even mean? Well bear with me here for a few moments. You know that feeling that you get when you’re playing an RPG and you’ve just entered a new town and all of sudden you find yourself getting mobbed by all the local NPC’s, pounding you with fetch quests and kill orders like you’re some sort of hitman who moonlights as a courier. It starts to get pretty overwhelming and you begin vetoing the main questline, giving pride of place to Joe Nobody and his psychotic desire for seventeen Ogre scalps. Alright Joe, you crazy bastard, I’ll get you your Ogre Scalps, but if you don’t reward me with a sack full of loot and Jimi Hendrix’s re-strung guitar then I’ll be keeping the scalps and a chunk of your ass jammed on the end of my boot. 

Lucky for me they didn't make left handed guitars back then.

Your progress grinds to a screeching halt as you’re stuck in the same bloody area. You’re too scared to move on in case you lose a few worthless reputation points or Joe really does pull through with Jimi's restored git-fiddle. You check your journal every five minutes, agonizing over the workload like it’s some sort of urgent school assignment. Every monster, farm animal, tree and shrub which you rape for quest items, gradually turns the surrounding landscape into a desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland. Its scorched earth on a scale unheard of since the Kraut’s levelled half of Finland. But that’s alright, because you won’t have missed any important story content or quest rewards. You’re worse than a headless chicken. At least that poor bastard gets to die when all the running around is done.