I’m sorry. I am terribly sorry. I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the demo. Somewhere halfway through the second part, I found myself pressing the guide button on the Xbox 360′s controller, followed by the Y. Exiting the game in favor of the dashboard. I sat staring at the screen for a while. How could this have happened? How could things have gone this wrong?

There was a lot of good in the demo, I will freely admit to that, but I haven’t felt this cheated since the release of Guitar Hero 3. Remember when Harmonix sold the rights to that franchise after the second game so they could move on to Rock Band while another company took over Guitar Hero and made something that, despite being Guitar Hero at its core just didn’t feel right at all? That’s what it felt like to me. In a lot of ways, yes, I played a Mass Effect demo, but in a lot of subtle ways, I wasn’t playing Mass Effect. I was playing something else.

A large part of this feeling came from the fact that there was no subtlety  involved in this experience. I know a demo doesn’t embody the full experience of the real game, but that is still not an excuse. The game seemed to be trying to hard to wow me. To amaze me. And it did it with cheap straightforward trickery the way I’ve come to expect from games like Gears of War and Call of Duty. It works when those series do it, but this isn’t BioWare. This isn’t what I started playing these games for.

Yes, I am mad. After I set down the controller, I was seething mad. I had to play several rounds of Geometry Wars 2 to cool down and reflect on the experience. It didn’t help. The more I thought about it, the more problems I had with the game.

Let me recap the experience, to give an idea of the problems I had with it.

First of all, I wanted to roll a FemShep. Since it’s just a demo and not a lasting thing, I wanted to go with the default option. The default FemShep looks terrible. I really wish they hadn’t let the community decide. I went back, selected the default male Shepard and started the adventure. Also, I got to decide that Ashley was dead right there! Excellent!

First 5 minutes: Wait, what. What is happening. No. Fuck. Bullshit!

Commander Shepard is not a commander anymore. He’s kicked out of the Alliance Military. Okay… I’m failing to see how this is a relevant plot point. Commander Shepard died at the start of Mass Effect 2, Cerberus resurrected him. He worked for them after that. He wasn’t a Spectre anymore. He wasn’t Alliance anymore. He went rogue. Assembled his own crew with his own ship. That was what all of Mass Effect 2 was about. Shepard getting his own independence away from the Council and Alliance so he could fight against the Reapers with his own loyal crew.

How the hell did the Alliance ground him? How did they take away the Normandy 2? It’s not even their ship. How did his crew get disbanded? It’s his own crew, nobody was working for the Alliance. Why didn’t anyone take Shepard seriously about the Reaper threat until now? The Reapers attacked at the end of the first game. Without them, Shepard wouldn’t have died in the second game. They even found the damned relay proving the Reapers really are a fucking threat, that they need to be stopped. Shepard was on his own, if nobody believed me he should’ve started his fight with or without them already. Not sit by idly because his planet tells him to sit down. What the actual fuck is going on?

I should not be able to call bullshit to this degree in the first 5 minutes of a demo. That is not good writing. That is worse than Dragon Age 2. Sweet jesus fuck, I’m going to hate this game, aren’t I?

Shepard meets the human council. Because. Well. It’s too late to talk to them. So we should talk to them now.  Okay, makes sense.

Earth gets attacked by the Reapers. Okay, I have to admit, this looks really, really cool. But at the same time, is this really the Reaper threat we’ve been building up to all this time? I’m not really impressed. It looks directly copied from the Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds. Which was also a really, really cool movie and totally pretty to look at. But no more than that. You would think interplanetary warfare would have become a much more impressive and technologically advanced thing. Big ships shooting big lasers is not really that impressive considering some of the things we already have within the Mass Effect universe.

Kid appears. He’s going to die isn’t he?

Normandy appears. Oh hey, it’s got an Alliance sign on it again. Looks like they really did take Shepard’s own ship. Oh, and Shepard got reinstated. That would’ve been really impressive if Shepard’s biggest accomplishments were actually within them. Oh, and hey, the kid does die. No surprise there.

BAD TRANSITION

AWKWARD PART OF A CONVERSATION TO CRUDELY ESTABLISH THE CONVERSATION

I choose a dialogue option, and it suddenly faded to black and then skipped a whole bunch of stuff. Erm. What?

ACTION SCENE!

Okay, so this time we have some more abilities, and an area much more suitable for combat so we can find out how the combat in this game works. I do have to admit, the controls are much, much better during combat this time around. Although I feel awkward about how I can dive back and forth, kinda like Gears of War. Then there’s the extra power behind the melee attacks, which is also like Gears.

And why did I just randomly get Paragon points? This isn’t the first time this happened. Is this game choosing dialogue options for me? I’m pretty sure I turned it off by choosing RPG Mode. Which shouldn’t be an option anyway.

That’s another thing that’s been bothering me this entire demo long, actually. There are much, much less conversation options involved. And Shepard’s talking without any options every now and again. Just like Dragon Age 2. It broke the sense of control over the character, and I’m starting to get the same feeling with Shepard now too. The game is also much more action-driven, and from what I could see from the demo so far, the previous story doesn’t really matter much at all.

Shepard, once again, starts without a ship, without status, without a team.

One of the biggest problems I had with Mass Effect 2, despite loving the fuck out of that game, was that the story hadn’t moved forward at all. At the end of the first game Shepard had his ship, his crew, and the reapers were coming. At the end of Mass Effect 2, Shepard had a new ship, a new crew, and the Reapers were really coming this time. Now we have another time skip, and we have to get the Normandy back and assemble our crew yet again.

This is not how you create a series. There isn’t much in the way of continuity going on. Each game could be the start of the whole experience, and I understand why they’re doing that. They’re trying to appeal to a broader audience with every single game. Doing their best not to exclude anyone. But they’re doing this at the cost of the story.

One thing is clear here, Mass Effect 1 was created by a different BioWare than the one that made Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect 2, the game that was right in the middle of the two games, had just the right balance of what the first and third games are trying to do. And BioWare did admit that in terms of story, they never really planned much. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ending in Mass Effect 3 has absolutely nothing to do with the events and planning in the first game.

I always wanted to know how this story would continue, how it would end. But it’s no longer the same story. The story to Mass Effect 1, to me, will never have an ending.

Mass Effect 3′s demo has killed my interest in the game. And with that, my interest and involvement in anything to do with BioWare.

I’m sorry, Commander Shepard, but you no longer have my favorite game series on the Citadel.

You can’t give up now, not after what you went through to get here.

Those are a dangerous set of words together. Yet as advice goes, this is something that’s spread around frequently. Maybe I’m looking into this too deeply. Maybe I took it too much to heart. But I’ve found that it is really time to drop that train of through and move away from that.

Although I’m at a loss for words right now what else I could possibly believe in. What way I could build a more positive form of motivation. I don’t want to build motivation on other people again. I don’t want to build it on the fallen remains of failures again either.

You can’t give up on England now. Not after you went through all of that to get here.

That’s the first time that kind of advice popped up for me. I was still in England. Things weren’t going too well. Someone, in an attempt to motivate me, said that. And I held on to it. Even before that I already held on to those sorts of thoughts.

“I survived my time working at the restaurant, I can take anything on now.” 

That’s where it really started for myself. It made it all too easy to hang on to painful memories as a form of motivation. Then the advice came not to give up on things in England because I went through those restaurant years. And I sort of never let go of anything ever since.

In the end I had to give up on England, and make a “tactical retreat” back to the Netherlands. I couldn’t give up on my dream just yet though, because of what I went through with my first attempt at moving.

It’s plain to see why this train of thought is dangerous. After a while, you just accumulate reasons not to give up.

Because of the hard restaurant years. The turbulent move to England. The hard time while I was there. The shit job that wouldn’t pay me. The move back. The time with my family where I lost everything. Ireland. The hostel shuffle.

More and more things that went wrong. More and more reasons not to give up. More things to carry with me as I go along. After a while, the only thing it really does is fill your head full of noise and make you want to give up more than anything. I went on full self-destruct because of it.

Then I gave up. I let go.

After a while I noticed how, along with that, I let loose of all those reasons not to give up too. I felt a lot lighter. A lot better about myself as a person.

At this point, I’m still looking for a way to believe again. To motivate myself again. I still don’t know what I can do to get myself out of this situation. I still feel stuck. I still think I could seriously use any help, or information, or anything. But at least I’m not dragging all this dead weight along with me anymore.

Picture grabbed from Tumblr, artist: "Sarah Anne Johnson"

It’s hard to stay motivated. Even if things are going well, staying motivated can be the hardest part of it all. Setting the pace, keeping up with the momentum. Meeting the demand.

But that’s just basic life. Staying motivated when there is no movement. No momentum. no pace. No demand. That is a special kind of hell.

Everyone loves feeling needed. Everyone wants to be special. But with no work, no pending projects, and no activity with the things you’re trying to set up, motivation becomes the hardest thing. After a while, all that’s left is giving up. It all feels pointless. There doesn’t seem any need. You feel worthless, unnecessary.

That’s kind of where I am at right now. The past year has been rough. I’ve mentioned it time and time again, and it is a fact. It is something that cannot and will not change. It’s behind me. All that’s left to do right now is move on, but in what direction? What is there out there that I can actually do?

I could keep on writing. Like I always have. Writing makes me feel better about myself. It gives me worth. Although lately I’ve been reaching this point where writing makes me feel empty. Like there’s no worth in it. No need to keep up with this. I’m still not sure what this means. Maybe it means that I need to step up my game in terms of writing. Try new things, challenge myself. Go pro.

Maybe it means that it’s just not for me. That this is just another venture that in the end is not worth the effort.

Same goes for the ever elusive England dream. I still really want to get the funds to move to England. To start a life there. I can’t feel comfortable here in the Netherlands. I never have. But now is not the time to question England. To get there I’d first need the funding to make it possible, and right now that is something that’s just not within my reach.

Getting a job is proving near impossible. It’s really bad, it’s not even funny. So I’m still trying to find other ways I could possibly earn anything to help set me up to a point I can start enjoying life again. Because honestly, whoever said that the best things in life are free hasn’t been as poor as I am right now.

But I have a roof over my head, and an internet connection, so all things considering it could be much worse. The lack of control over my life though. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t do anything. It makes it hard to get a decent mood going. Which leads to thoughts about abandoning all my hopes, dreams, desires, ambitions, all of it. And on a frequent basis too. Dark thoughts constantly surround me, and they’re accompanied by nightmares when I sleep. There is no escaping from them.

Every other moment, it’s like I’m surrounded by a dark vortex of negativity. Like there’s a hurricane around me, an electric hurricane that is screaming obscenities to me. Or to quote the 1985 murder-mystery comedy Clue: “Flames… Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breaths… Heathing…” Who knew a comedy movie could get the feeling of insanity down the most realistically?

None of this is really new either. This has been going on since October. Almost every day since then, giving up has been on my mind.

Along with several other ideas, but they’re generally defeated by the other half of my thoughts. Some of the things I have been considering have been, in no particular order:

• A Kickstarter project for a book about the moves from country to country
• A paypal link for paid blog posts, reviews, or subjects for me to talk about on here
• A paypal link on Tumblr, allowing people to buy my next Live Blogging choice
• Asking people for stories they want me to write somehow

It’s kind of hard coming up with basic ideas while tired, but most ideas have been of this kind. Anyone else any advice, ideas or projects they feel worth my time? Either comment here on this blog post, or e-mail me at remyvanruiten[at]gmail[dot]com.

With this development, I think it’s pretty clear that SOPA does not need to pass for it to come to the worst. What we feared an internet with SOPA and PIPA would be is already a reality.

And it’s going to take more than just blacking out a major site or two, or just protesting. This isn’t something that’s just going to go away. This is something that’s going to keep coming up again and again.

Get ready.

Things are only getting started. And they will get worse.

Just this once, I am willing to discuss politics, because this is something that could not only have a negative effect on my relationship with the internet, it could very well sweep away the rain and stop the Gyakuten Orchestra from playing that sweet saxophone. Sure, I could experience that by going out in the rain and listen to real people play the sax, but rain is wet. The internet as it currently is allows me to experience the joys of rain without any of the negative side-effects it might cause.

SOPA. PIPA.

Most people who know how to find this blog will know the basics of these bills, and what they represent. They stand for a restricted internet where corporations tame the wild seas of the internet, and with it our take away our platforms. It’s like ending the golden age of piracy by sinking every ship in the harbor, and beyond, but for the major commercially owned ones. What’s even worse is that it’s, for a large part, the traders who dealt with the pirates and profited from them who are doing this.

You know that already. You are fighting against that already. You are doing what you can to keep the internet as it is a place that can continue to exist. That is good, but it isn’t going to be enough.

Sorry. I don’t want to rain on your parade (I’m not kidding about listening to Rainymood right now), but sooner or later, a bill will pass. And how good or bad that is depends not just on the bill that will pass, but on how we respond to it.

You see, the internet is going through changes. It’s getting older, and it’s starting to show true signs of the thing that it will settle down to become. For many of us, the internet didn’t become the big serious thing we now all know it to be. And it’s only half-way there. If anything, what we are at now is the rebellious teenager phase of the internet.

Most of the online communities, circles, even the first signs of an awareness and understanding of memetics, were all attached to the media forms that came before it. Television, print, radio.

We’ve developed all these things to a point they can continue, work, and exist on their own without that initial connection being there.

Radio? We have podcasts. We have so many podcasts out there, on so many different subjects, it’s almost insane to keep up with them. What’s even more crazy is that so many of these podcasts are much more in line with how radio used to be. I don’t know about all you crazy foreign folks out there (I’m Dutch, even you Americans are foreigners to me), but over here radio talk shows have pretty much died out. Oh, sure, there are still a couple of shows where they talk in between songs, but the relevancy and level has dropped to a point where there really isn’t a point to tune in because of the hosts and their talk anymore. There are no stories being told any more, and the ones that are generally are found on some website somewhere. Whoops, they’re actually relying on the internet now.

(Pssst, hey. Figure out the rights to your materials, we may want to create an even ground with other media formats later on. This might be useful if other platforms ignore our rights. Commercial establishments using your material, and even worse, doing so without even crediting you for it is a no-go under Creative Commons.)

Print? We have articles on subjects everywhere you look. You know what the sad thing here is? At some point print forgot that it isn’t about finding the exclusives, it isn’t about being the first to something, it’s about how you present this. Especially in an established format that, once it’s out there, will always continue to be out there. It’s solid. Set in stone. Printed. They should push quality, and make us care why they are talking about it, and why this interests them so much. Instead, the quality in most print magazines these days seem to be at the level of most tabloid sites. A collection of noise. Blogs are even doing a better job at carrying voice admits all the noise. Speaking of which, there’s enough print magazines that like to feature bits and pieces of information from the web, screengrabs, slabs of text and all, without properly crediting it as something from the internet. The more tech-savvy naturally will credit everything properly, but the ones less so? I’m afraid not.

(Pssst, hey. Hey. You are listening right? Figure out the rights to your materials. Do it.)

Television? While there’s a lot of good shows on there, there is just so much noise on there it’s nearly an all-static media format. Although it has been improving as it seems it finally found a way to grow up and be itself. Remember when TV shows weren’t expected to deliver the level of quality movies do? Remember when we actually expected something from Hollywood? I don’t know about any of you reading this, but the more movies from 2011 I watch, the more I’m convinced that movies are the new “daytime television”. Although that doesn’t mean that TV is completely in the clear here. There’s still those “homevideo” types of broadcasts that, instead of making people feel special by having them send in videos of themselves making fools out of themselves, broadcast videos ripped from the internet and broadcast those to ridicule them.

(Psssst, hey. Hey. Rights, motherfucker. We can’t do this to their materials, they shouldn’t be able to do this with ours.)

Now, one of these days, a bill is going to pass. It’s inevitable. It’s not completely bad, but there will be a compromise.

In all probability, we will need to figure out a way to create a bubble for ourselves in which we don’t use any materials that major corporations have copyrights to. Fair enough. It would certainly end a heck of a lot of controversy regarding copyright.

I say, let them have their goods. We all know that they’re doing this for control over the internet. For control over our thoughts, for control over what pop culture is. Let them have it. Let them be in control of their own products. But, let’s try to keep their control there. If we play this whole thing right, we can turn it around and disentangle the internet culture from the pop culture that they have created. Suddenly, they have full control over their goods, because nobody is getting anywhere near it.

Teach them how big a thing word of mouth really is. And let’s teach them that by holding on to our own culture. The internet has been around for long enough for us to create our own standards. Our own culture. Our own music. Our own brands. Our own intellectual properties. If we learn our rights, if we learn how to play this game the right way, we can lock them out of the internet harder than they’d like to lock us out.

The internet is home to many, many innovators. Home to many creative people. Lots of extremely intelligent folk dwell these plays. And many of them are incredibly charitable. if there are any folk who could actually come together and play this thing out in a direction the pushers of legislation like SOPA and PIPA don’t want it to go, it’s them. It’s us.

And you’re afraid of memes to die…

Well, if you know anything about memetics, the nature, and the mutation of it, you’ll know memes will never die. Heck, how many internet-only memes are there that don’t include anything from outside our bubble already? How many times must you be warned about stairs before this stops happening? I’m telling you dog.

We had a nice day where we all stood together and watched the lights go out on the internet. But this isn’t the end of it. Not by any stretch of imagination. These things will keep coming back, and we can either keep trying to stop them at the last minute, or find some way to preemptively take control.

Have a nice internet.

Medic

When two good teams fight, the team without a Medic loses. This is often repeated during games between people who have a decent understanding of the game, usually by the losing team when they don’t have anyone playing Medic. Despite this, a lot of people don’t like playing Medic, especially not in a group of inexperienced players. As a Medic, you’re only as useful as your team is. If your team sucks, then well, you might as well play a class that can impact more by himself than support others.

Teamwork really makes or breaks the Medic’s potential. You don’t want to waste an ubercharge on someone you think is going to push, when they just turn around and run after a single, less important enemy. That said, you don’t want the Medic healing you to waste an uber on you when it’s really not the time for it.

And that’s just the start of the problems you can have with less experienced players. Sticking to a single player and healing them constantly is not a good idea. No matter how many times they spam the Medic macro, it’s not worth it. If you know what you’re doing, you can keep several people alive at the same time, rather than just that one Heavy.

Also, if you’re playing Arena, and your team doesn’t have a Medic, your team doesn’t deserve to win.

Sniper

If you don’t want to be a credit to the team and prefer to stand still somewhere in the back, the Sniper is your obvious choice. Although, not really. Snipin’s a good job, mate. When it comes to defence, the Sniper is efficient, polite, and he’s got a plan to kill everyone he meets.

Perhaps before all the updates the Sniper wasn’t all that great a class, especially not a supportive one, but since the Sniper update, a good Sniper can perfectly assist a difficult push. Although the opponents will likely not appreciate that this support comes in form of him literally pissing all over them with his Jarate bottles.

I used to hate Snipers, and was completely uncapable of playing them until recently, when I realized that in some situations, it’s best not to zoom in and just shoot normally. Really, that’s all there was to it. Since that moment, I’ve been moving forward, helping players capture control points, killing people with knives,  and helping people out. With my Jarate. A product of the penis.

Despite my newfound respect for decent Snipers, I still have a deep hatred for Snipers using a Huntsman. I’ve messed around with it a few times, and I could have sworn that a lot of the instant kill shots I’ve fired off were supposed to miss their target entirely. I’ve seen videos of “incredible” Huntsman shots on YouTube, that confirm my suspicions that the hitboxes are just absurdly disproportionate. It’s really worrying when you realize the Huntsman’s arrows can get powered up by a Pyro’s flamethrower. A cool effect, sure, but powering up an already overpowered weapon? I’m not too fond of that idea at all.

Spy

Sapping your sentry. Stabbing your Heavy. Impersonating your Sniper. Sleeping with your mother. I think with that, I can drop my weapons and walk away.

The Spy is the paranoia inducing part of the team who can cloak, feign death, pass sentries without being shot, and instantly kill players up close. Despite the fact he’s often put down as a beginner character, I found him one of the harder characters to get right.

First of all, to play a good Spy, you need to have a good understanding of the roles of all the classes, and how people play them most of the time. You need to understand this both so you can walk amongst your enemies while cloaking, but also so you can predict their movement and eventually take them out without it leading to a suicidal move.

In an Arena match, a good Spy goes a long way. Since there’s already a limit of players, it isn’t too hard to find players out of eyesight of others and take them down. Deadringing can seriously end up confusing players. Plus it instantly drags take down the least agile of Arena favorites: the Medic. If you thought I was going to say Heavy, you haven’t spent much time playing Arena matches.

Wait, this sounds lame, and stupid to you? It certainly doesn’t for me. A number can have great importance. A 2 is not a 1, and this last one was not too great for me. I’m a firm believer that two will make up for it. It’s a nice rounded number.

New Year’s Eve, party or no, is a change in number. A change in gears. Although that is not all that it is. For just one evening, a city, a place of normality, where you rarely see anything out of the ordinary happen, transforms into a town of bright colors and smoke. A magical place that feels small, where, just for one evening everything is possible.

Both good and bad of course. The night brings home many tales of accidents involving fireworks, and regular works of fire. Bombs. Cars set on fire. Bonfires. But surrounding all this is a rare occasion of people going out on the streets, neighbors standing side-by-side, enjoying each others presence. Amusing themselves with fireworks and good cheer. We take a moment to wish each other a happy new year, and much good fortune in the future, when otherwise we’d just walk past each other with no further comment.

That, in itself, is magical.

The next day, everything goes back to the old ways. Although, not entirely. Not just yet.

For one day, a day most spent with headaches, and many promises of never again, we let the dust settle. Literally. The smoke clears out. The city starts feeling as new. And in a sense, it is. It’s always been new. It’s always been current. It’s always been there, just the way it is now. And it always will be.

That in itself, is magical.

Of course, we’re here now, half a month after the event. Most resolutions have been resolved with a negative result already. Most of the feeling of good cheer, and promises of a better life, have left us just as swiftly as the bonfires, fireworks, and smoke has.

That doesn’t mean the magic has left us.

It’s still there, just where we left it. Just because we don’t always stop to appreciate it doesn’t mean it’s not there. That, in itself, is what the magic is. Everything.

So, what does that mean for this blog? What can you all expect from me in the coming year?

The same thing you can expect every year.

My ramblings on topics that, at the moment of writing, I feel need saying. Trying out new things as I go along. Learning more and more about myself, my state of mind, and how I view everything surrounding me. Because, that’s how I make my own magic.

I hope you all stick with me for another year of blogging. This goes for the old subscribers who have been with me for almost 2 years now, as well as the new ones who joined me during Guest Post Week. And, of course, everyone in between.

Let’s make this a magical year, without downplaying what has always been right in front of us.

You know, I’ve noticed that in the past 4-5 years or so, game developers have decided that if they have a popular FPS or RPG series, such as Fallout or Call of Duty, they have already planned to do absolutely nothing to improve the game and instead, choose to rehash it every one to two years. This bothers the hell out of me and I want it stopped.

I’ll start with Call of Duty; the only distinctive differences between Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3 are the guns that have been reskinned, the perks got even more abusable, the killstreaks have actually gotten worse, and the action has gotten a fraction of a second faster. But even if the guns do seem like reskins, sometimes they don’t even change what the clip looks like, so the gun looks wonky and ridiculous if you’re reloading it or sprinting with it.

The perks are basically split up versions of Black Ops’ and MW2′s perks. I can’t tell you how many times I have been killed by someone who was running with Blind Eye-Assassin-Dead Silence, because they are literally unable to be seen or heard. They’re like annoying, pestering ninjas whose intentions probably including making you throw your controller through the television screen.

Another more thing that MW3 messed up on: the killstreak packages. Can someone tell me why in the blue hell the Stealth Bomber streak is in the Support package, when it should be in the package that actually is supposed to kill the enemy? You know, the Assault Package? Infinity Ward messed up on putting the UAV in both the Support and Strike packages as well, because with Strike, you’re supposed to kill. If you want to detect an enemy, you’d expect your teammates who are doing Support streaks to call it up. But no, Infinity Ward assumed that your teammates are all incompetent and don’t know how to press right on the D-pad, so they gave you UAV out of pity because you have to do everything yourself, even if you’re in Team Deathmatch.

When I spawn in Modern Warfare 3, I expect to live for maybe about 2 seconds before some asshole who’s sitting behind a wall clipping decides to scope in with his sniper and shoot me in the head. When I say that the action has gotten just a tiny bit faster, I mean that you have to have twitch-like reflexes to get the hell out of spawn before you get murdered. I don’t know what psychedelic drug the map designers over at Infinity Ward were taking when they decided to set all the spawns, but I think when they had the option to vary the distance between the nearest enemy and where you spawn, they smashed ’0′. I have recorded game footage that has me and two teammates spawning directly in front of a sprinting enemy, only for all three of us to be mowed down. Ladies and gentleman, this is not improvement. This… this thing shouldn’t even be considered a sequel.

The Madden effect should not exist in shooter games. The producers do not need to be set on a nine to ten month deadline to produce the exact same game with a few extra features and the gameplay drastically worse. But you know what the worst part about it is? This trend this isn’t just for mainly shooters, either. When I played New Vegas, the only thing that seemed different to me was the map was maybe a little bit bigger, but the gameplay was buggier, the missions were just a slight bit longer only a couple of times, and the end result was disappointment.

This method of recycling should not be accepted, and we should not stand for this. One day, I hope we will all boycott any games that have been recycled the past four years, and hope that the publishers realize that they are killing gaming with strict deadlines.

Well its time for my own piece to appear on this website. Since this blog typically works on life experiences mixed with a bit of writing, I decided to write about two things I know best about writing, creativity and alcohol. In my own website and indeed my own twitter tag, I have constantly been “Bridging the gaps between politics, youths, video games, literature and borderline alcoholism.” This phrase was coined by Remy himself and in fact tends to represent how I write my pieces. This entire editorial shall be written while under a heavy influence of alcohol. There will be no grammatical edits the next day, nor a rewrite or two; this is simply me writing to you as I write best, drunk out of my mind.

For the longest time mind altering substances have had a place in our society, legal or illegal. Whether it is Native Americans smoking their pipe before a meeting or Vincent Van Gogh consulting the ‘green fairy’ of absinthe for his own inspiration, we tend to discover new and exciting creative leaps while under the influence of some kind of substance. The answer for this is quite simple; while under the influence, we see things differently, we think different and these things can either combine into something completely stupid and irrelevant, or with the right ratios, some piece of beauty can be created.

However these kinds of things most of you already know; what I’m going to talk about for most of this piece is how it affects me, what alcohol does to my own creative process and why I’m drunk so damned much when I want to write. While drunk, the world twists itself in ways that are unconventional, unusual and individual to my own mind. This helps me in my world creation, the interesting aspects being drawn from the strange thoughts that enter my mind.

Characters are also easier in an inebriated state of mind; the parodies of various stereotypes are easier for me to think of while drunk and the more three dimensional characters can be drawn by the vices I find myself drawn into. Character creation, in this manner is more of a rough sketch, the refinements of such characters do happen while sober, but the general magic, the first spree? That does occur while drinking.

But what about plots? Well this one should be more obvious than the first two. Plots are fabricated from the fantastic or the mundane. Fantastical plots are easy enough to create while drunk, the mind does think strange things while under the influence after all, but little do you know what strange, sobering stories stem from the recesses of a drunken mind. While you may also think of the stories that make your drunk friends go, “That’s like so totally deep man,” you also learn to explore other elements such as social environments, violence and human psychology and sociology. Watching people at bars and clubs is one way to discover the dark side of human nature.

When it comes to the writing process, words appear on the page quicker. Ernest Hemmingway said it best, “Write drunk and edit sober,” and I find these words particularly enlightening in my experience. While intoxicated, you’re not scared of trying new styles of writing, experimenting with new formulas and deviating from your norm, something that few writers even do. While its important to remain skilful in your craft, writing what you know all the time gets you nowhere; one must be willing to innovate and experiment with their works to create something new and different and intoxication allows you to do that without the stress of potentially messing up your works.

So what can we say at the end of this piece? Well obviously that this kind of writing style isn’t for everyone, but then again what writing style is? What’s important and what you should take from this story is not how I write my stories and pieces, but rather that each style is distinct and individual from another; you should take that the unconventional works just as often as the conventional and most important of all, that we should not restrict our writing. Alcohol allows me to avoid that last point, but it may not be the same for you.

I’m not going to claim that everyone is going to be the next King, or Martin or Tolkien, but I also won’t pretend that there isn’t potential is most writers that simply put pen to paper. There is always potential if one learns how they write, like with any skill, practice is key.

In my group of friends I’m not the biggest film nerd of the group but I think it wouldn’t be to egotistical to say I’m the biggest horror movie fan. While asking my friend who is probably the bigger movie nerd of the two of us whether he had seen Trick r Treat he said he had, after I forcibly sat him down and made him watch it. And although he enjoyed it immensely he also said that I loved it so much more than he ever could. And I know that’s true but not just about that particular movie but also about the horror genre as a whole.

This isn’t to say that I only watch horror movies. Anybody who just watches one genre of film, even if its hybrid genre like Dramedy, you better keep your eye on that sumbitch because they are up to something. As for me I try to keep my movie outtake as varied as possible with the usual like watch indie dramas, slapstick comedies, and big dumb action movies just like everybody else but horror is the genre I find the most infinitely compelling.

Finding a cool horror film is just something I find immense pleasure in, and not for the usual reasons of trying to make myself look more “in-the-know” then other people. Finding out that one of WETA Digitals first films was Peter Jacksons criminally underrated The Frighteners, or that that the production company that made House of the Devil also made I Sell the Dead and Stakeland, or Fred Decker’s only two feature directing credits are for the equally amazing Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad are just as much fun as watching the films themselves.

The problem is that whenever I talk about this particular passion around mixed company people tend to look at me like I just pissed in the punch bowl. I’ll admit that sometimes I do find it hard to justify a watching a flick where a busty blonde takes a chainsaw to the face, but horror is such as versatile genre that it makes me wonder why most people see the horror genre as a few notches above pornography on the legitimate art scale. It certainly doesn’t help that any horror movie that manages to get a wide release gets a critical drumming nine times out of ten, and very rarely do these feelings have anything to do with that specific movie but with the genre as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong, there are A LOT of crap horror movies. Probably more than any other genre, but I think that’s why viewing a legitimately good horror movie is such an amazing viewing experience that it just stands so explicitly outside the pack. Most mainstream critics of the genre usually reference films like Psycho, The Exorcist, and Jaws and although those are definers of the genre they’re often treated as exceptions rather than the rule. It also doesn’t help that whenever I read critic specific to horror it just feels like they’re preaching to the choir, nobodies trying to change anyone’s mind about the genre aside from the usual “the violence acts as a therapeutic release” cop out.

I’m not saying that’s not true but as fans of the genre they should be showing people why Horror is such an incredible genre instead of defending it. So if anyone reading this is a fan of horror do me a favor, the next time someone looks at you like you just sprouted a second head that looks like Ernest Borgnine because you were talking about a horror flick you just saw don’t get defensive. Sit them down and talk to them because they probably do like the horror genre and just need to be nurtured with the right content.

If they say they like old monster movies show them Neil Marshalls fantastic werewolf vs special ops film Dog Soldiers. If they like mind benders like Memento, show them Christopher Smiths twisty Triangle. If they like a film to have an explosive energy that propels itself forward without skirting on character work or creature design then you have Attack the Block. If they like things cinematic but with a pitch black core then you have The Mist. Like to pick apart film tropes, then give Behind the Mask : The Rise of Leslie Vernon a spin. Tucker and Dale vs Evil is there for people who wonder if the family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was just misunderstood. And Return of the Living Dead has a female protagonist that’s naked for almost the entire movie for little or no reason, who doesn’t like that.

Horror will probably never be considered a genre everybody likes, but it should be a genre everyone should respect. The one thing I hope I accomplish with this writing is that maybe a few of you who have counted the horror genre out will give it another chance and check out some of the films listed above. Now if you’ll allow me one last minute of self indulgence I’d like to end this by going full on cryptkeeper: So get out there my fellow and future horror hounds, and have a SCREAM of a good time! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Or don’t

Its completely up to you.