I never assist slavers

Yesterday's post got me thinking about the way I play video games. I thought I had posted on this before, but I couldn't find anything on it, so here goes:

No matter my intentions going into a game, I always play the "good" guy.

I play a lot of games that permit choice - you can rob, kill, help out the bad guys, or run errands to help a town whose water supply is poisoned, a person held captive or cursed, what have you. Pretty much no matter the setting - outer space, post-apocalypse Washington, New Vegas, or mythical land - I choose to help out the good guys. Sometimes I do it with a gruff attitude and with little leeway for what my character will put up with and little remorse for negative consequences, but I almost always chose to try to help. Sometimes I'm what you might call a reluctant good guy, but I'm always what you would call - I think - a good guy.

- I never assist slavers. In fact I relish in wiping them out.
- I never provide comfort the the bad guys. I don't always actively wipe them out (until they turn actively hostile), but I don't help them.
- I usually donate money to the poor, and though I usually suspect there is some "in game" angle, I do so even when there isn't an obvious end game in the game.

This isn't to toot my own horn. I actually think the behavior cuts both ways - its a pro and a con, in other words. It shows both what is best and what is worst about me. And sometimes, it reflects the moral black and whiteness that composes the gray of my real life, as it did with Boone. Because although he had murdered woman and children, he regretted it now and I took him on as an ally. I helped him kill the person who sold his wife into slavery (the laws of good and bad are a little loose in post-apocalyptic worlds missing a court system, in my estimation). I genuinely wanted to help him wipe out the Legion who had taken his wife. And I was sorry to see him die.

And its not just companions in general - I got a second, a robot, and lost him in the first mission with little remorse. I'm now on my third companion, mostly because I know want a companion in tow. Partly for the company, partly for the help carrying stuff and partly because I'd like to replace Boone. But she's kind of annoying.

Another example: I freed some slaves from the first batch of Legion I happened upon. Boone was in tow, though I had stowed him away up on a cliff. This was both to prevent him from dying in a battle against unknown forces and also benefited his style. But as the family fled a soldier I missed started shooting at them. I killed him, but not before he took out the mother. That broke my heart and I kicked myself for it. I couldn't find the other two, so I assume they got away. But I honestly wished I could have protected her.

It's an interesting psychological study, I think. Or maybe I just don't get out enough.

Boone has died

... and with those words I had a very weird experience.

Boone, I should explain, was a companion in the game Fallout III: New Vegas. He had been with me for about half of the game at that point. He was quiet and personal and conflicted: not only had he participated in slaughter as a military man, his wife had been sold to slavers and he killed her to save her. His was a sad story of regret, loss and the resulting demons.

My affection for him was heightened because he had helped me out of several tight spots in the game and I gave him all the scavenged stuff to carry, effectively doubling my carrying capacity.

But then I made a bad decision and we ended up in the middle of a pack of wild dogs. Close combat where Boone's sniper rifle skills amounted to very little help. And then he was dead. And I was actually a little moved. Not to tears; I wasn't really sad. But I certainly felt a sense of loss. I felt enough that I ceremoniously dropped a hat he had given me with his corpse and placed his sniper rifle in an unused locker in the shack I use as home base. Then I took a moment and moved on. He had just gotten finished telling me that he felt bad things were due him because of the bad things he had done. I guess he was correct.

I'm kicking Hell and taking names

I've been playing a second go-round of the pretty damned good game Dante's Inferno.

At various points in the game, the punishment of the damned are shown or explained. Playing the game got me interested in the source matter (the poem of similar name), which got me doing research on the topic.

And that led me to two types of sinners and their punishments that got me thinking. The first is those who worshipped the Devil or a demon. Their punishment (in game) is supposedly reduced from other nonbelievers and deniers, but they are still locked in burning caskets.

The second is simonists, who sold church offices for personal gain. They are help upside down (per wikipedia's take on the poem) and dipped into fonts carved into the rock of the eighth circle of hell.

I've always envisioned Hell as the Devil's domain. A land he lords over as his own personal fiefdom. But this punishment of those who you would otherwise take as the Devil's ground troops made me wonder. Plus (spoiler alert) the game ends with you freeing the Devil from his bonds.

So... is Hell the Devil's playground, and thus he's punishing those souls that reside there; or is Hell God's creation, and he's the one who is doing the punishing, and the Devil, while there, is mostly imprisioned there? I'd have to say right now I'm leaning toward the later.

But that would raise some additional questions about God, his ability to forgive and forget, and his kindness.

Out of the mouth, into the ... belly of the beast?

... into its pancrease? Frying pan? Wouldn't the last one be absolutely backwards, I mean, who spits into frying pans? Wait, don't Italian spit on people for luck; or at them; or something? Something to do with the devil? You can't tell, but I'm squinting my eyes right now trying to work this out. Like this, or this. NOT like this. Insensitive bast@ard.

I'm desperately trying to tie this post's headline to the last one. Unfortunately, the analogy doesn't work very well. Maybe you could tell. Maybe you couldn't. I hid it pretty well, I thought. Keep that in mind while you're scratching your head wondering what the hell this rambling means: don't hold me to a strict interpretation.

Writing last night started off slowly, but by the time I was done had gone very nicely. I even had to write ideas down on paper after I quit because they just kept flowing. That's twice this week. My new goal is three times a week. The problem now is that I sit down to write one of the 14 pieces I have left, and I end up writing something leading up to said piece. Then my next "sit down" is writing the original idea. So while I'm writing frequently, and not really adding to my list of stuff to write, I'm not really making as much progress as you might expect. Thus the increased writing sched.

I FINALLY beat the boss I was fighting. I'm not exaggerating at all to say I probably died 40 times fighting this guy. Plus a couple times on the way to him. Although this guy claims, in a hilariously snarky walkthrough, that the boss is "quite easy" even though it might take a "couple tries" to get the timing right. Yeah, F that. I have choice words for him. A couple tries times, oh I don't know, 20, maybe. Maybe to the power of 4.5. Can you even do half powers? Did I even do the powering thing correctly? Who knows. Probably a math specialist, I guess. Then again, I'm probably better at Ninja Gaiden than a math specialist. Though, those math people can be pretty geeky, so maybe they are pretty good at it too.

Anyway, relieved to have written well. Relieved to be past the infuriating boss fight. SUPER relieved that its Friday. WEEKEND! I need it. Almost took off today with a touch of spring fever. Had the sun been scheduled for an appearance, I just might have done it.

Random wishes/thoughts:

- I wish Blogger had a strike command so I could strike out words. Or at the very least that I could find it. I could have some fun with that, I think.

- I also wish Blogger had one of those post-category box search thingies where the lables you post in frequently are bigger than the shitty little ones you never post too. Those are just cool. You know what I'm talking about. Or maybe you don't.

The mouth of the beast

Just a couple quick comments because, well, frankly, I don't have much to say.

Wrote Tuesday night and was pretty productive. I was worried I was running out of ideas, but I've found that as a write, I usually expound upon what I have, so its all good. The sheer weight of the project is lifted, but now there is the fear of the end. I mean, if its junk, at least when its unfinished junk I can fix it. Once its written and done, well, that's my best product. If its still junk, that ain't good. In other words: I'm in the mouth of the beast.

Ugh. That last just reminds me that I CAN NOT seem to beat this boss in Ninja Gaiden. I'd actually like to move on because I'm frustrated as hell with it and because I'd like to beat the game and play another.

Loving Scratch Beginings so far. Loving might be a touch strong, but I'm liking it a great deal.

Bryan - Now with Ninja Slash Action!

Yesterday I booted up Ninja Gaiden for the first time since using my "collectible," "sold seperately" Leatherman Squirt knife on my own finger.

Check out the professional renactment.

Don't you hate it when you die just before a save spot a number of times during a really hard part in a game? You just know you'll have to go back through it all the next time you play. Well, that's what happened to me. I had died at a pretty difficult part just the morning prior to the knifing. It's still hard.

But because I'm playing now, I have the bonus of directing Ryu with a thumb that is still missing something in the way of feeling. It tingles on contact, so you know its working. You know how you can feel when your leg is asleep, but you can't quite feel the actual leg enough to control it? Its like that - but it doesn't go away! It makes controlling direction difficult, it adds another whole dimension during pretty intense fights, but wait, its will also become somewhat uncomfortable if my thumb pushes down the wrong way.

Why move around the action in a smooth, fluid way when you can move around in a boxy, stuttering way?

Tingling in the thumb controlling the directional joystick, lack of full feeling, discomfort if pressed on the wrong way. You can't get that from controllers sold in stores!

That's a $30 sensation; yours absolutely free! But only for a limited time. We can't go on like this forever.

All I can say is Sham Wow.

I'm still here

As I type this I'm huffing & puffing and my heart is beating as if I just ran a marathon. Though, I guess technically I just did a push up marathon.

Week 5, Day 3 (20, 20, 24, 24, 20, 20, 22) then a final set of 50 that I started after a 1:30 break, got through 25, took a 45 second break, then did 10 more, and finally a 15 second break and the last 15.

The first 150 went pretty well, though that last 20 and the next 22 are a dousy. That's 200 push ups in 10 minutes.

100 UPDATE: My mom has joined the 100 push up challenge. I think she does something like 3, so she's way behind in Group 1, Week 1, but good for her. Its not necassarily about how many you can do NOW, its about how many you'll be able to do and doing them at all. She's seeing the same kind of body transformation that I am. So for everyone and anyone reading this, join up. Its tough, but I promise you'll see results. As I said, I'm pleasently surprised by the results and the gains.

RANDOM NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: I'm still reading Curious Minds & becoming more and more curious about Scratch Beginnings.

I'm playing Ninja Gaiden II almost exclusively. I still love Horde mode from Gears II, but NGII has my focus right now. The first one was a tough, tough challenge. The game is known for its difficulty, and this one is living up to the title.