Fallout 4 and the Art of the Sequel

I feel I should preface this by saying I thoroughly enjoyed Fallout 4 in spite of the tone I may take for the rest of the blog. Plenty of aspects of it need tweaking - a weak main story-line, a beginning that has you lock in your playstyle before you really know what you're doing, and a perpetually cluttered inventory - but it's intensely addictive and no matter what point you are in the game you always have something to do, and not only that, you always want to do it. The combat is much more comfortable than ever before, and while the graphics aren't phenomenal (save for the extra effort they put into the hindquarters of the female Vault dweller) the atmosphere is excellent and more than makes up for it.

But that's not really what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about the world of sequels, through video games, movies and television. There's a lot of talk about sequels becoming more and more prominent as of late, and, well, it's a cold hard truth. Take a look at the top grossing films of 2015 - Star Wars, Jurassic World, Minions, Furious 7, Hunger Games, Spectre, Mission: Impossible, Hotel Transylvania 2 and Pitch Perfect 2 are all spawns of previous films, and even those that aren't are not original stories. Ant-Man and Avengers: Age of Ultron have not only come from the past but are essentially the same hero movie on repeat; The Martian and Cinderella have come from a book and a folk tale, respectively. Home is apparently based loosely off a book as well, which is news to me as, somehow, I have yet to have heard of it. The only original - yes, the only purely original movie of the top fifteen is Inside Out. As you move down the list the percentage of original films starts creeping ever higher as the box office totals drop. Due to the successes of sequels I guess you can't blame the companies for  creating them. It's undoubtedly safe as they are already quite certain of the fan base that will come to support the movie/game/show in spite of ratings, bad press, etc. Anyways, this you probably know - it's become old news because we as viewers will flock to these recreations even if they're terrible - I'm looking at you, Hangover sequels.

Video games fare no better. Multiple Call of Duty's will always be at the top along with the latest installments of NBA, FIFA and Madden games. Naturally, Star Wars creeps in there as well. Television on the other hand you would think would be somewhat exempt. It's hard to reboot a show when typically they'll run until they're out of steam, lasting until the viewership wanes and the viewers move on to new programs. But even then, it's polluted by numerous Marvel and DC comics and CSI: [City Name] shows that don't really bring anything new to the table but will nevertheless do quite well in terms of viewership.

Turning away from the tried and tested is an incredible risk. Blizzard Entertainment, my favourite game company of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo fame, openly states they don't try to innovate all that much. They take what's already there and established, tweak and fix it relentlessly, and release it as a more polished and perfected version of what's already out on the market. They've also been running with the same set of games for ages (although just recently adding a new franchise to the mix). With that in mind, I should love sequels. It takes what I know and love and enhances it, a system that is not dissimilar to the idea of breast implants.

Also similar to breast implants, something just isn't quite right about it. Without taking any risks, it's hard to produce something really outstanding. I have problems believing that when I see a new Superman movie it'll be in some way new to me, considering the character itself was created in the '30s. Video games suffer the same fate of pigeon-holing themselves, but in a notably different manner. What people want out of the game is essentially the same thing but amped up a little bit; a touch better in terms of graphics, a little smoother gameplay, a few of the bugs worked out and so forth. This is, to a tee, what Fallout 4 is. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand why. If they went an entirely new route - even on a few features - they may anger their die-hard fans, and no single force of people carries more hate and vitriol in their veins than video game fanboys. Worst case, if they stick with the same and screw up there'll be hardly a fan that won't return for Fallout 5, praying it's a return to form and a reboot of the previous games in the franchise. However, if they change it up entirely it might not attract that many back if the game doesn't land particularly well. Call of Duty could have three terrible games in a row, and the majority will still come crawling back - just as long as it stays true to the same formula.

I suppose that's not all bad. You know what you're getting into, and hey, as I said, I did enjoy Fallout. But the problem is any potential for a great breakthrough in the game, that changes it up for the better, is squashed right out of the gate. I'll give them credit - they tried. The game brings in an entirely new feature to the franchise in the creation of settlements in the wasteland, a home to call your own thrown together from scraps of blown out buildings and old mailboxes that you can design to your liking. At the core it's a decent idea, even if in practice it wasn't all that great. Naturally, it's what's caused the rage to rise to the surface from the ever-present force of basement dwelling nerds (of which I am not so proudly a part). Cries of "This isn't Fallout! I want to explore, not play The Sims" became more and more popular.

I believe the reason why it might not have panned out so well is the fact that they tried so strongly to hedge their bets. In holding true to the style of the game (which means changing essentially nothing) they couldn't make settlements too intrusive - which means they are pretty close to useless. Their decision to make settlements mostly optional (you can absolutely pass the game with hardly paying attention to them whatsoever) meant that their focus must have been dragged away to the main core of the game, leaving a sloppily put together unfinished product. They're not all that interesting, provide little benefit, and the player could really use a little more guidance in how they function. Of course they're not going to be all that impressive. Why would they place a heavy emphasis on an optional segment of the game that not every player would participate in?

All this stems from the same problem - people fear change to the point that creators are forced to shy away from anything truly ambitious. New is dangerous, and what's the point of going out there for something new if the tried-and-true will undoubtedly provide you a larger paycheque? I would have really liked if there was a greater focus on settlements which would add a new element to a game that feels exceptionally similar to it's predecessor, even if it is a more polished, complete game. Perhaps if it was a more critical, central part of the game it would have received a little more love, making it less, well, sucky.

So all told, while I enjoyed Fallout 4, there's a part of me that's craving something brand new. Settlements could have provided that bonus to shake up the series, but alas, the will of the fanboy was imposed and only a lightweight attempt was put forth - and due to the lack of effort put in, it ultimately was left wanting. In a perfect world, Fallout would have had the freedom to push themselves in that new direction with the fans of the series willing to at least give it a shot before immediately shooting it down.

Perhaps I'm part of the problem in dutifully buying every sequel to the series' I enjoy and having what I would deem a successful year determined by the enjoyment I received from watching Creed (it was phenomenal, by the way). So, maybe there's no solution. Bring on double-digits of Fast and the... Still Fast. The world needs Call of Duty to come full-circle and go back to the past (I kind of mean that, actually). All I'm hoping for is that innovations to the tried and true be given a fair shake. Give settlements a shot, y'all.

A Tale of SimCity: My First Attempt

Thriving, happy cities like these aren't
really my jam. I have a knack for
crippling depression and fire.

After creating my sim through my two blogs of The Sims 2 in which I killed myself before creating the wildly successful military man Jack Maximum, it seemed fitting that I create a city for the guy. Well, at least that's my excuse for wanting to have a run at SimCity, the fifth installment of the series. The game was met with mostly middling reviews due to forced online play, a massive server issue on release (which shouldn't reflect upon the reviews of the game but it inevitably does), and the one major complaint that I feel personally, the map sizes being far too small. The game has since allowed single-player mode, which in turn negates the effects of faulty servers, but haven't changed the map sizes. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful game that doesn't deserve much of the heat that was placed on it.

So here's my story of creating my beautiful, thriving city - a town worthy of one Jack Maximum.

They give you a number of choices on what region to move into, where there are multiple places to found cities that link together with one another. There are options for seaside views, lush, forested lands and whatever the heck an archipelago is. But this is my first city... would it be right to build in the best lands when I myself am not at my best? I've played the game a few times and my cities quickly become cesspools. I even named one city Cesspool, which, while aptly named, lacked tourism for reasons I couldn't understand. So I passed on regions with names like "Serenity Key", "Whitewater Valley", and even "Granite Lake" (the lattermost sounds too confusing for a city - maybe I'll wait when I'm more of an advanced player). I settled on one that I felt would be a greater reflection of my future cities. I picked the only region that made sense.

I settled in "Desolation". 

A dry, barren land that has all the beauty of the Grand Canyon without the vastness or feelings of Americana. Or the beauty, really. It's a pretty rough landscape, but that's not a worry for me. I was renaming "Desolation" anyways, after my home province of Alberta, but adding a regional flair of changing it to 'Berta. Real-life 'Berta is a lovely place, with such gems as the cultural history of the great cocaine rush in Fort McMurray fantastic town names such as Carstairs, Picture Butte, and Vulcan (originally named after the Roman god, but now it's mostly Star Trek stuff). But I had one place in mind that I wished to hold the namesake of my town, and that is Torrington - the home of the famous Gopher Museum I attended earlier that year. Thus, Gopher Heap was born. And Gopher Heap flourished. 

Is this what education gets you? Education has only
provided me with unemployment. And not in SimCity - 
that's why I'm playing SimCity. 

Made into a mining and drilling town, the Heap was surviving off tearing the very heart from mother nature herself and exporting it to the global markets. There were a few minor problems, I'll admit; one single road leading to the sprawling industrial complex was a notable mistake, and traffic problems abounded. Terrible city planning put the sewage system and the dump directly upwind of the city, meaning that Gopher Heap not only looked like garbage, but it smelled that way. It wouldn't be easy to clean, either, seeing as the harsh badlands in which they were settled were low on water. Even electricity was hard to come by; a wind power plant (Gopher Heap goes green!) provided little, and quickly took up way too much space. The only thing that seemed to work was the drilling and mining operation which my poorly educated sims seemed to take to quite well. 

SimCity in 1989. The colour scheme is similar to my
present day Gopher Heap.

It was actually the sims that caused the most amount of problems, if anything. Knowing the city was having difficulty with providing electricity, they still refused to live in darkness. Knowing that water was scarce, they still wished to drink. I couldn't please them. Their businesses kept burning down, so they wanted a fire department. They kept getting murdered, so they needed police. And all the gunshot wounds from the high levels of crime meant that they wished for a hospital, apparently disagreeing with my "survival of the fittest" model in which I had a few citizens die on a daily basis due to injuries or illness. Demands of trash pickup arose as they apparently haven't figured out how to throw garbage in the basement, and sewage was an issue as they haven't discovered corners or a shovel. Worse yet, someone informed them of the notion of education, meaning that they demanded a school. That's where I put my foot down. They would receive an elementary, but no more; no fancy high schools, colleges, academies. They would be just well educated enough to write me angry letters, but they certainly won't be able to write them well. Perhaps if I gave them schools they could solve some of these problems on their own. 

The expenses of such wild notions of having both a hospital and a fire department planted me firmly in the poor house. The people were angry and I was angry with them, so I callously demolished a few homes to induce fear in their omniscient leader. It did little. My town was dying, soon to be covered in dust as everything else was in 'Berta. I called it quits. I'll be ready next time. SimCity won't know what hit it.

Far Cry 4 Review

Overview:

Only so many games allow you to blow up a rhino with C4; Far Cry 4 is one of them.

There's a little more to it, though. Far Cry 4 follows Ajay Ghale's travels to the fictional, mountainous, and beautiful region of Kyrat. There, he hopes to fulfil his mother's final wish: to have her ashes spread in location of her choosing. As it turns out, things go south fairly quickly - the land is undergoing a civil war between tyrannical leader Pagan Min and the Golden Path, a band of revolutionaries hoping to take him down. As video games never side with the tyrannical leader you're going to be the one killing a whole bunch of evil soldiers fighting for Min, the pink-suited, metrosexual dictator.

Far Cry is engaging, undeniably fun, challenging and visually stunning; however, it is not without its flaws. The majority come in the second half in the game, when a first half that is polished and intriguing just doesn't continue as one would wish.

Visuals:
Far Cry 4 is an incredible feast for the eyes. The land of Kyrat is beautiful, and the style of the game lets you not only explore it at your leisure but fly through it, climb it, swim in it and drive over it. There were plenty of times when I would find myself taking a moment just to look around and take in the sights. It's vivid and colourful, and flying around in a junky flying machine or soaring past the mountains in a wing-suit is an experience in and of itself.

The motions and movements of the people, both when you're riddling them with bullet holes or having a discussion with someone about whom you should leave riddled with bullet holes next, are smooth and natural. This is a big thing when you're running a game that's particularly story driven - a character that comes alive in the voice acting can fall apart if the motions don't match, but Far Cry clearly put the effort in.

"Far Cry 4 is an incredible feast for the eyes."

Lastly, there is one stand-out in Far Cry that deserves special attention. There is a side-plot set of missions that are not necessary to complete to pass the game, but rather just to provide a degree of background to the mystical world of Kyrat. It sends you to the corrupted paradise of Shangri-la, a place of bright yellows and reds that is perhaps the most beautiful place I've seen in a video game. Basically, the whole land looks like this, but it doesn't really do it justice until it's on a big screen with so many sun-shafts coming through it looks like the an artillery barrage of light everywhere you turn. I rarely like side missions that separate you from the weapons, armour, or skills you have acquired along the way, but the sheer beauty of this segment of the game is well worth the time.

Gameplay:
If you played Far Cry 3 you're not really finding anything new here. The game requires stealth to take over outposts, meaning you stab many people in the back with knives or quietly dispatch them with a bow and arrow, or, more likely, you screw up and find yourself pulling out an assault rifle and blasting your way through, Rambo-esque. From the beginning, it's challenging and rewarding for those who possess a degree of planning and patience, and taking an outpost without a single one of the dead having known of your existence until you're carving them up like a Christmas ham is an incredibly satisfying experience.

The problem with Far Cry is the difficulty level isn't entirely maintained from start to finish. At some point you find yourself wielding a sniper rifle, allowing yourself to pick off enemies from the distance without them knowing where you've shot from. They counter with mortars, but for the most part they're not particularly effective. Suddenly, it's become easier to crouch in a hill somewhere and take your time bumping off unwary men in towers rather than sneaking through on foot. It turns from planning and nervous execution to simple point and shoot. Discovering explosives is next on the list, and again, it takes away a little bit due to the fact that C4 is about as devastating in the game as it is in real life (I would imagine). Lobbing a couple into a room tends to clear it out without much of a worry. It's also cheap enough that it's readily available, making the previously adequate difficulty level no longer applicable. Lastly, the most wildly overpowered weapon comes in the form of a simple side-arm. It's a hand-held grenade launcher that, by the end of the game when you have the upgrades for a better ammo belt and explosives pouch, holds more than you would ever need. Side missions that occur (like blowing up drivers of enemy vehicles) become mind-numbingly easy - a vehicle is no longer something that requires some clever driving and shooting to take down but rather one single shot from a weapon slot that held a sub-par pistol. Considering it's also an explosive, accuracy doesn't even really matter. Hit it close enough to the truck and it's game over. If they survive the first blast, well, shoot again. The repercussions for doing so are essentially nothing and the risk and strategy is cut to ribbons.

"The problem with Far Cry is the difficulty level isn't entirely maintained."

You can say "well, to get the achievements or to enjoy it more you can choose not to play that way", but video games don't work like that. The first time you play you use any advantage you can to complete the game. Far Cry, as much as I enjoyed it, isn't necessarily something I wish to play again - it's not a knock on it, but rather speaks to the nature of single-player campaign based games. The difficulty has to be spot on at the first attempt, and sadly, it falls short. The final mission in which there are plenty of enemies does not prove to be particularly difficult as a sniper rifle and grenade launcher (as well as very high powered assault rifles) make short work of whatever they throw at you. Higher numbers are irrelevant if they're not really strong enough to cause you any real harm (or to dodge your explosives). There is the occasional mission where stealth is 100% required or you lose instantly, but those were few and far between. They were also far and away the most challenging, rewarding, and ultimately the most fun.

Characters and Plot: 
*Careful: spoilers ahead for the rest of this blog.*
Admittedly, Far Cry 3 left a tough act to follow with the absolutely superb voice acting and characterization of Vaas Montenegro. Vaas stole the scene of every one in which he was featured, but can the same be said for Far Cry 4's Pagan Min? Well... sort of. Not quite. The beginning of the game has him torturing people (but treating you fairly well with a fine meal) and it certainly grabs your attention. But as the game progresses, he comes across as an eccentric but nothing in which you're all that interested in. I found myself asking why I even wanted to kill him so badly. That's disappointing when it's the driving force of your character's motivation.

The ending mission has you storming his castle, finding him once more at a dinner table much the same way the game started, and it's up to you to decide his fate. I decided, at first, to let him live. He led me to plant the ashes where they belonged from the beginning. I left the room to find him taking off in a helicopter. Panicked, and not wanting to let him get away, I pulled out (what else?) my side-arm grenade launcher and fired two well placed shots at the retreating helicopter. "THE KING IS DEAD" comes up on my screen. I've completed the game. I didn't even see Pagan Min die - I just saw his helicopter go down. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little disappointing. Not every game needs some big shock twist, but I need a little more to think about than a simple search for an enemy, finding him, and eliminating him much the same way I eliminated literally everyone else from the second half up until that point.

This poor ending isn't an isolated incident. Far Cry simply seems to have issues with the final results of characters, being able to build up all the interest and intrigue but ultimately letting it fall short. I felt the same way with the death of Vaas in the third instalment, and I felt pretty much the same way with everyone else in this game as well. I chose Sabal's path (the leader that is for religion and tradition at the cost of economics) leading me to kill Amita (who is the opposite of Sabal, believing in a drug trade economy that will help Kyrat flourish). When Sabal forces me to eventually kill Amita, it wasn't really all that exciting. He asked me to kill her. I went and killed her. Done. That section is over, and the repercussions for it were ultimately pretty minimal. It was building to it for so long, and when it finally happened the only reason it wasn't entirely predictable was because it was so predictable. I kept thinking something would happen that would change the course of things, but no - going much the same way as Pagan Min, with a build up to the death of a character followed by the expected death of that character. Everything about it was entirely expected.

"Far Cry 4 seems to have issues with the final results of characters, being able to build up all the interest and intrigue but ultimately letting it fall short."

The two most disappointing storylines were the side missions of Longinus, a born-again Christian and former African warlord, and Reggie and Yogi, two drug addicts. The warlord supplies the Golden Path (the anti-Min rebels of which you become a part) with a number of weapons. He continually sends you on missions to blow up, assassinate, or otherwise dispatch of whomever he feels like murdering, depending on his mood. Most of the missions are basically the same, to the point that Ajay actually states that he knows what Longinus is going to say next. There's a slight change in demeanor in the penultimate mission of his, when after going from his eccentric, loud and Bible quoting self to tearful and drunk, you wonder where the next turn in the story will take you. Suddenly you're interested, and you're hoping you see more into what makes a former warlord tick. You complete the mission he sends you on to find him packing up his stuff and leaving, giving you a final reward of a rocket launcher that is a bigger version of your all-powerful hand-held grenade launcher - but ultimately much less effective due to the fact that it only hits a little harder, and this one takes forever to reload. All that stuff that looked like it was building somewhere? No sir. Longinus' story flirts with progression, but in the end literally just packs up and leaves.

Yogi and Reggie, the most annoying part of Far Cry 4, fare no better as they frequently stab you with needles and send you on drug fueled adventures. I had hoped for some degree of progression with them as well, having their stories tie into the main one in some way. However, nothing really comes of it. The final time they drug you, you return to find them once more pleased at you finding your way back and inexplicably not bombing the heck out of them the way you do everyone else. They thank you for being such a good test subject. Again, nothing really happens with them and it leaves the story a little hollow. No big epiphany, no moment. They just say thanks and that's about it.

Synopsis:
Far Cry 4 is still an excellent game. The stealth missions are top notch, the visuals breathtaking, and the length of the game about what it should be considering it's a simple campaign focused game (I took no interest in what felt like needlessly tacked on multiplayer Call of Duty stuff). The combat is streamlined and sleek, similar to its predecessor but making improvements wherever they were needed. However, the second half of the game starts to fall apart due to having your weaponry and resources vastly surpass the abilities of your enemies. As well, all the intrigue and interest in the first half of the game in regards to character and story progression began to taper off, resulting in disappointing endings for literally every character in the game. It always left me wanting more, building towards payoffs that simply never came.

The Sims 2: Bettering Myself

Still mourning the loss of my dear sweet Sim, so recently found dead in his beautifully wallpapered and carpeted but otherwise empty house, I thought I'd crack open the game again and give it another shot. A rebirth! I'm going in with a new attitude: absolute practicality. This time he's going to have a toilet and a shower. This time he'll have access to food. I dare say he'll even have a bed, preventing his painful collapse on the floor from exhaustion, in precisely the spot where he died from hunger. This time he'll pick up a job, but as a change of pace he'll survive long enough to make it to the carpool. I believe. This is the time.

First thing's first, I have to create my Sim. The most notable mistake I made the first time was creating him in my likeness - but my mistake in doing that was I want the Sim to actually be a success, and thus far from my persona. The previous Sim's deep-sea diving helmet was a symbol of his failures; big and boastful, but more notably, terribly impractical. With this new Sim I'm going a new direction; something basic but determined, a crew cut, a part, or a knight's helmet (I chose the knight's helmet).  But what is his name? The previous one was named after myself, and now he's dead. This man needs a proper name, a name of power.. MAX power... Max Power! Oh, if only The Simpsons hadn't beaten me to it. I would have to change it up, but keep the same aesthetic. After much deliberation (by which I mean sitting at the computer considering names that sound 'cool' while I play a game from ten years ago) I came across what I wanted. An homage to The Simpsons but still its own.

Welcome to the world, Jack Maximum.

My first visitor to my old Sim's house.

Designing his house was a significantly cheaper endeavour than the last attempt. It was simple, small, cheaply wallpapered. It contained a toilet, shower, a microwave, lights, a bed, and deciding to splurge, a table. I was ready to begin. The first thing I did was read the newspaper and found a job to match my personality - already having the knight's helmet, a job as a recruit in the military seemed like the simple choice. I kept happy by doing things that my previous Sim just didn't have the means to accomplish, like personal hygiene and eating. The first few days went swimmingly, finding a few extra dollars, staying somewhat happy, and so forth. I even purchased a bookcase to brush up on my mechanical knowledge as well as a workout bench to ensure that I stay jacked. Fortunately the T.V. dinners and cups of ramen I have mastered in the kitchen have provided me with enough protein for me to increase my levels of fitness, earning me a promotion up to the rank of Drill Sergeant. Jack Maximum, you're unstoppable.

This is what my Sim does, but doesn't have the heart to
lock his doors.

Jack does have one frustrating problem, though. His house has become a party mansion with seemingly no way to stop the excess of people filtering in and out in spite of the lack of seating, food or entertainment. The neighbourhood comes in unannounced and uninvited, occasionally making snide comments about Jack's body odour (he works all day and pumps iron by night - cut him some slack). Worse yet, they inexplicably keep complaining to him about being invited over and having nowhere to sleep - a ridiculous accusation considering I have yet to even provide Jack with a phone. They use my computer (gifted to me rather generously by one of the better neighbours), clog my bathroom and break my shower. They also seem to have no qualms with the fact that they stay until the wee hours of the morning while I'm in my room sleeping. For a brave drill sergeant wearing a knight's helmet I seem to be a bit of a pushover.

Due to the complaining, Mr. Maximum has become unpopular in the neighbourhood. Few people like Jack, believing him to be a poor houseguest despite wishing for no guests at all. Somehow, they also consistently return in what has become a baffling mess of inexplicably acceptable trespassing. Trying his best, Jack has conversed with some, particularly one annoying girl who doesn't share his interest in robots and vampirism, his "turn ons". She didn't hate Jack as much as the rest of the neighbours and offered to set him up on a blind date - starting immediately. Lonely, frequently smelly, and tired of home invasions, Jack thought a date might be a good idea. This new woman fell out of the sky, and right into his arms. Within an hour, Jack was cracking lewd jokes and making out, all in the beautiful setting of his bathroom. She was entranced. Jack is happy. So happy, in fact, that he could sleep through all the people endlessly strolling around his house while he tried to get some sleep.

Warcraft: Killing Arthas

Warcraft 2 was released in 1995, when I was just four years old. My brothers picked it up some years later, probably when I was about six or seven, and we were pretty well hooked right off the bat. We put the disk into the LC575 Macintosh computer, in all it's beautiful grey, boxy glory and tried out the human campaign all together, with my eldest brother at the helm.

We had no idea what to do.

After some time fiddling with the controls we managed to figure out how to attack with our units - a few peasants that should have been used for mining gold. Our first action as commander? Attack our own Town Hall, get confused, and go to grab lunch, leaving the game playing in the background. Upon our eager return we found the building on fire - but this just wasn't any ordinary fire. This was a masterpiece of graphics, a phenomenal rendering of towering flames that was almost too much to handle for my seven year old brain. While this may be kind of pathetic, that is inexplicably one of the more distinct memories of my childhood.

Four years after the release date I've completed the campaigns, reached the final level in the expansion (which back then seemed impossible and is mind-numbingly easy now) and have clocked countless saturday morning hours before the older brothers woke up wanting the computer. Then, content as ever with the game, my brothers called me to the screen on what proved to be a fateful day. They call me in to watch a video. Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos was announced in 1999 with this absolutely phenomenal trailer. Heart pounding, not knowing what horrible monster had just come to attack my beloved orcs and humans, I eagerly awaited the release that came three years later. 

Warcraft 3 is and always will be my favourite game. The gameplay is well ahead of its time, the multiplayer was tremendous and engaging, and the cinematics were (and still are) sights to behold. But it was the storyline that hooked me, primarily due to the character of Arthas. If you're unlike me and had better things to do in 2002, Arthas was a prince that was leading the armies of the king in a battle against a sudden, rather unpleasant assault of undead monstrosities. Having sworn to avenge the countless fallen citizens of his kingdom, he sought to find Mal'Ganis, a leader of the undead whom he thought was the head of it all. In his fury, stuck on the frozen shores of Northrend (an icy continent in the Warcraft universe) he found an ancient weapon that corrupted his mind and pulled the prince into undeath, but only after defeating his greatest foe. He returned to his homeland a monster, murdering his father, the king. 

The following campaign focuses on the undead, also a playable race. This time, you're leading Arthas and his zombie minions in his mission to blight the world with the undead plague. In his wake he leaves crumbling cities, murdered characters of Warcraft lore (some of whom were near and dear as I did, after all, grow up with them) all the while finding the time to make a number of snide comments that make you love to hate the character all the more. It's a tremendous story, and one that continued in the tremendous expansion, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. 

While I couldn't play the original Warcraft 3 fresh out of the gate (my computer was much too slow, and we had to wait to get a new one) Frozen Throne was practically an instant purchase, released one year after in 2003. The campaign was thrilling, as you once again lead Arthas to glory as you trample whatever races that get in your path. The final level in which you reach the Frozen Throne, a beacon that has been calling to undead Arthas ever since his corruption, was one of the most difficult video game experiences I've had. Upon finally beating it (with countless attempts and about fourty saved games of "good starts" in the files) Arthas ascends the throne, hearing in the background memories of the people he has betrayed or murdered along the way. If you're as into the games as I was, it's absolutely chilling.  He finally reaches the top, dons the helmet of the Lich King (the entity that summoned him there) and sits atop the throne itself, completely victorious. But it doesn't end in the glories of typical video games, trumpets blaring and a battle scene raging. It's utterly serene. He sits, sword in hand on the throne, as you realize you were the one that led him there. I destroyed much of the world that was so ingrained in my childhood. It ends with the quiet, lapping waves of the waters of Northrend easing you out of the scene. You can watch it here.

That's the last you'll see of Arthas for quite some time. The following year (and looking back on it, I can't believe it was only a year) Blizzard released their indomitable World of Warcraft - but mostly with the absence of Arthas. A few zones have references to him and much of the world is changed due to the events he caused in Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne as well as the original, but he's... absent. I would have been bothered by this if I wasn't so utterly absorbed by the whole world. Sometime later they release an expansion, but once again without the most memorable character. It wasn't until 2008 he made his thrilling return, being the focal point of a whole expansion when WoW was at its peak of popularity. 

He was slowing you down at every turn, mocking and threatening you, and gosh darn close to pretty well unstoppable. For the next several months you take down his commanders, minions, and otherwise, but never get a shot at the king himself. Eventually, they release a patch where you fight through the Frozen Throne until, weeks later, you get a chance to fight the chief. However, there's a very good chance you couldn't do this. That variety of content was (at the time) specifically for a very small, dedicated group of players that were ready to find others, commit to a time-frame and use their skill and commitment to finally defeat him. Having groups that only consisted of close friends and being unwilling to commit the degree of time required, I never even thought about having the chance. I watched the in-game cinematic of his death unceremoniously some time later. It wasn't a fitting end to such a tremendous character. In spite of all the hours I clocked in World of Warcraft it wasn't me who stopped him.

I had been playing Warcraft games off and on for over fifteen years now. Since the Arthas themed Wrath of the Lich King expansion, they've released a few more, and over time you "outlevel" the previous content. Arthas is designed for characters that are level 80, and with the expansions, I'm now a full ten levels above that [since the time of this blog - they have since released another, making it twenty levels]. With the addition of a recent patch making defeating old content even easier, beating Arthas is a paltry task - it's hardly more difficult than showing up. It took me a few hours to go through the entirety of his throne, defeating his commanders and other bosses along the way until I reached the king himself. I wanted some achievements for defeating him, and at one point it requires you to basically just let him swipe at you for a little bit. 

So here we are. I'm one guy in WoW, letting one of my favourite characters of any book, show or game swipe away at me with the sword that first corrupted him over ten years ago - but over ten years ago not in the game's world, but in my life. And he has no chance of hurting me. It's been six years since he's been relevant, and this character that in a lot of ways I grew up with is pretty well pathetic. After a couple minutes I killed him, took my new title from the achievement as "Kingslayer", looted his corpse, and went off to bed. 

It was a painfully unceremonious experience.

Unfortunately, there's no real workaround on this from Blizzard's perspective. They want people to see what they've done previously, and there is no reasonable way to make it relevant and useful if it's from six years ago. So they make it easier as a means of being able to check things out, learn the lore, see the sights and so on. But I guess when you find yourself attached to a series and a character (for those of you who aren't huge into video games, you can't tell me you've never felt that way from a book or film) you don't want to be able to mow through it just that easily. It was one heck of a weak goodbye.

When he was standing there, swinging Frostmourn at me, I was almost rooting for him.

The Sims 2: Creating Myself

It would likely be more entertaining if I started this article with some comment about a desire to live in a life with an 'undo' button, eventually trailing off into a joke or two about choosing my physical features. Where's the fun in that, though? I'd rather pick the honesty route and say the real reason in which I began to play The Sims: 2 once more, ten years after it's creation. It was given away free on Origin, and much like yogurt, if it's free I'll give it a shot no matter how old it is.

I don't remember much about The Sims from when I was a kid. I never had the patience to really build a character properly as I spent the majority of my time fiddling with the character creation settings and trying to make a unique but still properly functioning house. Both of these goals always fell well short; my character always ended up looking pretty well the same, and I wasn't creative enough to build a house that reached beyond the designing techniques of one basic rectangle. Fortunately, the character creation section was sorely outdated now and with that comes a lack of appeal, resulting in me giving the breath of life to my freshly birthed Sim in record time.

See the guy third from the right, lurking behind the green dude? We

become quite well acquainted.

 

 

I didn't go for anything flashy - in fact, he was pretty much just me. Skinny white guy, blonde hair, light jacket and jeans… everything was pretty well normal until I discovered the option of having a Bioshock-esque diving helmet on my head. Admittedly, this made my choices for hair and face quickly obsolete, but if you have the opportunity to live your life perpetually able to survive in the deep end of swimming pools without basic lessons, you take it in a heartbeat. My Sim was off to a great start, and without further adieu, he was ready to take the plunge into his real, fake life.

 

I purchased an empty lot to build my future dream-home. I planted some walls, some nice trees out front, a window or two, the whole nine yards. I then proceeded to struggle with putting a roof on the thing for the next (I kid you not) twenty minutes or so. At one point I somehow managed to build a giant cone around the entirety of the walls, at which point I was feeling the pangs of regret from turning off the 'hint' options quite dearly. Once I learned the trick to it (click second floor, not first!) I went about decorating the walls with some nice wooden-themed wallpapers, stone floors, and other such accessories that made my house look shockingly spiffy considering the freshly moved-out circumstances I was given. My Sim is going to freaking love this place.

 

Unfortunately, I may have gone a little overboard. His $352 left in his wallet were just enough to purchase a toilet and literally nothing else. His dream-home just became the single greatest outhouse known to man. Fortunately, he's a content fellow, and milled about over the next several hours catching bugs and reading the newspaper - in which he found a job as a security guard, coming by the following day at 7:00 p.m. to pick him up. What joy! A daily wage will surely be able to allow him to purchase a fridge. 

These Sims are way cooler than the ones I met. Wait, is that an
alien? Am I even playing the same game?

The neighbourhood came out to greet their new homeowner, marveling over his outhouse with awe and reverence. He spoke with some woman for quite some time, but they didn't really hit it off - I think trying to open with a high five just didn't work with her personality. Fortunately, it did with another lad in the neighbourhood, and he had a new friend faster than anything. His social meter - one of the bars of measurement for the happiness of your Sims - was through the roof. His bladder level was also just perfect, the new toilet serving it's duty flawlessly. 

 

However, there was trouble on the horizon - he was hungry as all heck, having not eaten in many hours time and having no access to the magically stocked super-fridge. Hoping desperately another Sim would bring over a pizza, he passed out on the floor, exhausted and lacking even a chair. The rock was somehow not as comfortable as he had hoped, and the hunger pains must have made it difficult to sleep. He kept asking for food, his free-will just strong enough to beg for sustenance. At a loss for cash, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't feed him. I refused to get a refund on any of the beautiful wallpaper I had laid down. What's a Sim to do?

 

Fortunately, a new visitor came to the door (perhaps he has pizza!). I didn't recognize him - he was dressed all in black, somewhat of a ghostly complexion, and brandishing a rather impressive farming implement. He politely informed me that my Sim had passed away. 

Well, crap. I'll try again tomorrow.