The Beginning... Or Not?

It's taken me three days to download and install Firefall.

Part of that is on my shoulders, because of, you know, LIFE, but a larger part of that I'm dumping square in the realm of Windows-8-can-suck-my-dick. If I had one. As an operating system, it operates relatively well. Actually, most of the time it does it's job of making your computer a usable collection of inanimate parts. Then every once and a while, it goes and does something wacky. Like suddenly deciding in the middle of a download that it absolutely needs, it needs, the latest service pack. It cannot go on without the latest service pack. Life is just not worth living without the latest service pack, and it will prove it to you by crashing in flamboyantly melodramatic fashion every time you attempt to give it the latest service pack.

These are problems that did not use to phase me. I was once woken up by my husband and brother-in-law at 1 in the morning because our network had come down in a case of the vapors and was refusing to speak to anyone. It did not phase me. I took these things in stride, like a trooper, a veteran PC user who knew that sometimes unplugging it worked, we don't know why, just go with it and don't question the ways of the Windows gods. But when I have a one year old on one hip, a bottle warming in the microwave, dinner burning on the stove, and my computer commits seppuku during a simple download? That shit phases me.

All of that to say, it took me three days to download and install Firefall. Shut up.

The loading music was my kind of zen. After the whole thing went sideways on me I even left the loading screen up just so I could chill to the music in the background while I did dishes. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The account setup was ridiculously easy (thank you for not making me log out and futz around on your website) so onwards I skipped towards character creation. Little did I know, what waited for me was some crazy gamer chick hip-cock to end all hip-cocks.

Seriously? Every since the infamous Lara Croft, I feel like most game developers have backed off on the over-sexualized female game character. I mean, not entirely. Let's be real here, they know who their primary market is, and it's not women's studies majors. But it's been a while since I've had a "Woah, what the fuck is up with her booty?!" moment while creating a female character. Yet here I am, staring at the female characters and thinking that there is no way outside of a porn studio a woman cocks her hips that much or sticks her chest out that violently. It looks like she's about to topple over face first at any moment. Seriously, guys? Seriously?!

Regardless! I stumble through creating a character, squinting at the ridiculously small description text for hair, eyes, skin, voice (one of which was incomprehensible to both me and my husband), and excitedly hit Volunteer and Fight!

At which point, the game crashes.

Play a Beta, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Sigh. I'll be back for you later, Firefall. You and your massively oversized booty too.

Unadvised Commitment

I am so tired right now.

So unbelievably tired.

Yet here I find myself, with burning eyes and my second coffee clutched in a death grip, reading through the webpage on Firefall, trying to mentally calculate when I can squeeze in an hour to try it.

Sleepiness due to video games is not an unfamiliar state for me. Shades of weekend long LAN parties, where we survived on candy, chips, soda, and 3 hours of sleep (with one eye open for the ever-present threat of being pranked by your fellow gamer "friends").

But that was a sobering decade ago (fuck, I'm getting old) and time, age, career and baby have all eroded my gumby like ability to bounce back. Video games have become like drinking -- tons of fun, but you pay for it days afterwards. Is the hangover really worth it?

It's not something I thought I'd ever have to do, actually work at scheduling my video game "fun time". But hell, between work, baby, laundry, food, baby and sleep I've had to schedule a whole other kind of "fun time", so why should gaming be any different!

So how in this brave new world of adulthood can I make time for video games? Should I even bother? I have no idea. But I intend to put my sanity and time management skills on the line, and find out.

First up, Firefall!

I Miss Video Games

I used to pwn noobs.

I used to stay up all night on Day of Defeat and snipe the shit out of annoying little 12 year olds who couldn't believe that a girl could have a 20-2 kill ratio. I used to suicide rush the barricades with a grenade pre-lit in my hand and it didn't matter that my ratio became pathetic, because it was a stupid crazy amount of fun.

I used to hop onto Final Fantasy Online and spend hours upon hours painstakingly assembling a group, running all the way out to the desert, only to pull 2 mobs and have the tank drop out because his mom was calling him for dinner. I crafted crystals like a mofo, and my mog-house was the ultimate adventurer's pad.

I used to have LAN parties, and consume nothing but soda, chips and candy for 48 hours straight, surviving on 3 hours sleep and the flashing of pixelated mayhem to keep me going until everyone finally crashed out from sheer exhaustion and over stimulation. I played Counter Strike like a boss and it always eventually degenerated into shooting each other in the head as soon as the map started.

I used to run a guild, first in FFOnline, and had a quiet little thrill when we hopped over to World of Warcraft and got recognized as that person who ran that totally awesome guild and holy crap you're famous. We used to run in-game game-shows with prizes. We were kinda a big deal.

I've played every single Assassin's Creed, and could blend better than a friggin' Cuisinart. I would make impossible leaps into stacks of hay, and emerged unscathed and miraculously anonymous once more. I was a little chicken chaser in Fable, and I was practically invisible as a thief in Skyrim. I robbed a guard of his sweet roll while standing on his toes.

Now I play This Little Piggy, and PattyCake... like a boss. I play zerberts on tummies and gotchernose and I'm-gonna-get-you!

It's not really the same thing. It's pretty awesome. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty damn awesome. But it's still not the same thing. I wonder if they make baby-sized Xbox controllers...