How Jordan Feels About RPGs

I like video games as much as the next guy, assuming the next guy really likes video games. If the next guy doesn't really care for video games, then I like video games more than the next guy. If the next guy is obessesed with video games, then I like video games less than the next guy but still more than many guys.

Usually, though, I'm behind the times when it comes to gaming. I got my first Playstation long after all of my friends, and I didn't get an XBox 360 until 2007. So I'm unhip. Whatever. According to hipsters, it's cool to be unhip and ironic now, don't ya know? Probably not. You don't seem that cool. Wait. No, that would make you cool. You seem really cool. Hah. Got you.
Now you're sad...like this hipster.





While you absorb the beatdown of awesome I just layeth upon ye, I'm going to tell you about my latest video game experience, what I like about it, and what really pisses me off.

I recently bought Dragon Age: Origins for the very low price of $14.98, brand new in the clearance section of Target. Being a broke ass college student, I could (read:should) have used that money to feed myself, but instead I fed my desire for rampaging RPG goodness. (I also bought Mass Effect 2 for the same price, but have yet to play it because I'm really weird and decided I had to play DA first and then go back and beat Mass Effect and then on to Mass Effect 2) Anyway, I had heard great reviews about Dragon Age, including some from a trusted friend, so I was pretty excited when I got started.

Character creation on the game is actually pretty good. About equivalent, if not better than, the character creation on Oblivion. I made a gruff Dwarven fighter, with all intentions of turning him into a Paladin-type character called a Champion. The first thing I noticed about the game is that the visuals are just okay. This is a very recent XBox 360 title, and I just feel like the backgrounds and environment could be...better. They were good, but not what I expected. Like your first time getting busy with that exotic race that you always fantacize about.

The biggest thing Dragon Age has going for it, in my opinion, is the voice acting. Top-notch and seamless. I feel like I'm really talking to a fucking Dwarf. That's not possible! Everyone knows Dwarves died out twenty years ago! In all seriousness, the voice actors really lend a personality in this game and add a whole new level of badass. As nerdy as it sounds, your primary companion, Alistair, absolutely comes alive, and I'm legitimately interested in his background, history and future developments with him.

The plot is pretty standard, but with some cool twists. Some demons invaded Heaven and made some Gods into demons and now their army, the Darkspawn, is running unchecked around Ferelden (where you start) and the rest of the world. Mages are regulated by the church and anyone who isn't in the church is hunted and killed. The Grey Wardens, a group of badass motherfuckers decided that this Darkspawn shit had to stop so they started killing the Darkspawn and of course they recruit you because you're the main character. So blah blah blah you gotta go on and kill Darkspawn and I haven't beaten the game yet so I can't tell you much beyond that.

"What?! You haven't beaten the game and you're writing a review? That's stupid." Hey, shut up, anonymous critic. I didn't say this was a review. It's more of a rant, actually, which I'll initiate now. My number one most hated feature of any RPG, and it's pretty prevalent in Dragon Age.

NON-NEGOTIABLE LINEAR STORY PROGRESSION.

Fuck you, NNLSR. You ruin games. You supply reality to my virtual world. You make me cease picturing myself as a badass dwarf with a sweet longsword, Dwarven chainmail and a big round shield. You make it seem like a game instead of a world. You are an asshole.

You may be asking, "What is Non-Negotiable Linea--- ahh, I lost interest. I actually have a life, unlike this nerd," and to you I say..."Yeah, well, I hate you."

Non-Negotiable Linear Story Progression is exactly what is sounds like, despite the name I just made up for it. It's when the game forces you to advance the plot without any other options. This infuriates me to the point of actually not wanting to play the game anymore. It's why I quit playing Dragon Age. It ruins good games and it kills more people than heart disease.

I love games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Knights of the Old Republic. I love how BioWare lets you have choices of what to say, and those choices affect how your character is perceived and regarded in the game. What I absolutely do not like is when you have a conversation with Bann Teagan about Arl Eamond's grave condition. He then suggests that they need to find the Urn of Sacred Ashes in order to cure him. Instead of allowing his assload of knights to continue searching, he decides to recommend recalling them so that YOU can go with a party of four and search one little place at a time. Of course, you're provided a conversation to voice your opinion on the matter. It goes something like this, with dramatization:

Bann Teagan: So like we totally need to find these Ashes, dude.
You: (Choices)
-So where would I find these Ashes?
-Will the Ashes really help?
-What will you be doing in the meantime?
-I'll find them.

Picking either of the first three just delays you having to pick the fourth. Of course if you ask him what he's doing, he's 'assembling the Knights to begin battle with the Darkspawn.' Yeah right, douchebag. You're going to stand in that same spot until I trigger some event and you'll move somewhere else. The entire thing makes me furious! You can't exit the conversation, you can't change the subject, you can't do anything except agree to do it and take it up as a quest. It's like being a woman meeting an NFL player in a strip club: you can say whatever you want, but he's going to have his way with you and you're going to have to go along with it.

Of course, I don't want to search the entire realm for a fucking vase of some woman's ashes. I want to continue killing evil things and being a Grey Warden (pretty kickass name for an organization) because people respect Grey Wardens for the most part. I want to develop a persona and relationships with my party members (Except Sten because he's a turd) and do mini-quests and get awesome equipment and lots of money.

As a gamer, I find that I've expanded my horizons with games like Oblivion and online games. I need an open world with a very non-linear storyline. It's a necessity for me now. I mean, I had my fun with linear stories, and I'll always respect them - especially the old classics. It's just time to move on. Will I pick up Dragon Age again? Yeah. Probably soon. Will I get angry again? Probably. Is that irrelevant in the scheme of things? Definitely.

...and you know what they say: once you go non-linear, even the fat ones seem skinnier.

Amanda on the Metro

I ride the bus a few times a week, mostly as an effort to get out of the house and see the real world. Today I ventured out and met up with a friend. After a session of becoming unsober, I had them drop me off near my bus stop. I am now officially one of those people that gets out of a vehicle stopped at a red light. There's such mysteriousness involved in that.
Now let's chronicle this story through my shuffled mp3 list that was blaring through my socially acceptable damaged earbuds.

The Patient - Tool
"If there were no desire to heal The damaged and broken met along this tedious path I've chosen here, I certainly would've walked away by now."


The song is about halfway through when I board bus 75 - Eastbound. The bus driver is friendly and says hello, and about 6 people are scattered throughout the bus, each involved in their headphones or IPad. Seriously, this one guy had his IPad out for all the world to devise stealing. You can barely see out the windows due to the coated brown sludge from our most recent blizzard, the sun is setting and everything has a blue-green cast about it. I sit behind everyone else, towards the backdoor, and have a pretty decent view of the aisle from my hard plastic seat. The bus comes to an unexpected screeching halt, and I see a man running alongside the bus and then a poofy tail. My first thought was, "Good save, driver! You could have missed him!" Seattle bus systems are rad in that you can bring your leashed pets aboard and this was the first time I've witnessed anyone actually doing it. So this rider takes like 2 minutes to get on the bus, dig in his pockets for change, and pay in full. The dog, a shaggy black mutt with a brown underside, wiggles his way between the guy's legs. The rider, let's call him Homeless Guy... which is short (and polite) for OVERPOWERINGLY STINKY GUY looks around, and the people sitting in the front actively avoid his gaze. The first person turns away, as if telling Homeless Guy (now let's call him Roger), 'Go past me.' Roger recognizes he's not going to get this convenient spot and shuffles forward a step. Person 2 immediately gets up and Person 3 follows suit, and they move a couple chairs down, being fully accommodating to Roger and his fuzzy dog. I remember visibly flinching as a wall of stinkiness hit the interior of the bus.... like a bus.

Uncontrollable Urge - Devo
"Got an urge, got a surge, and it's outta control!"
We ride along. I watch as the dog makes himself comfortable in the middle aisle. Everyone on the bus is visibly shifting uncomfortably, all the while trying not to face their heads in the direction of Roger, who has permeated the air with his exquisite scent eau de Garbage. Roger is squirming around, almost in time with my music. I wonder if he had an uncontrollable urge.

New Coke - Delton 3030
If you haven't heard this song, it's a bunch of vocal samples from the old lady who played the nasty mom in The Sopranos. It's a short song, but here's the lyrics, which I found quite appropriate to the events that unfurled around me.
Look out the window Look at all that bullshit going on down there in the street What's all that shit floating out in the water? Yea we gotta get out of here we gotta go to some island Grab your shopping cart Grab your cane Let's get the heck out of here We gotta move closer to the equator When are they gonna start showing those Mr. T reruns I used to love that guy Remember how we used to watch Mr T. wrestling? Coca Cola doesn't taste the same as it used to Remember when a bowl of soup was a nickel All that bass is gonna break my ears

Someone hits the signal to stop the bus, and the bus halts, and goes through this process of beeping and leveling itself to the curb. After a couple minutes, it felt like this process was taking longer than necessary, and then people started hollering to the driver. The driver finally heard the beckons over the loud beeping noises and left the safety of his walled-in driver's seat. I looked into his eyes, and could read his thoughts. 'Oh fuck, they don't pay me enough for this.' Turns out, there's a guy sitting directly across from Roger in a wheelchair, and he was ready to depart the bus, but Roger's stinky dog had somehow gotten his leash tangled in guy's wheels. Seriously, I don't know how it happened, but this was turning out to be the most interesting bus ride I've ever been on. The bus driver immediately begins trying to untangle the leash/wheel combo and Roger remains completely oblivious, trapped in his own little world.


While this is happening, there's an angry black man, dressed like a gangster in a matching white hoodie and white hat that sits askew on his head, yelling outside. At first he wasn't directing his yelling at the bus, it was the kinda yelling that you hear from drunk people who are just yelling for the sake of yelling. It was easily tuned out, until my music track changed and he started directing his angry yells at the bus.
"What the fuck, man! You're messed up! Why you gotta be like that?"
To this day, I'll never understand why he was so angry...


Push the Eagle's Stomach - Man Man
(please note, this song is full of lots of aggression and energy)
"Don't beat around the black jack night!'
Wheelchair guy finally books it off the bus. Some normal guy gets on the bus and says in the most serious voice you've ever heard, "Let's Go." I think our greasy-haired driver was smoking crack, because he talks to the black guy out the door.
"Do you need a ride? If you have fare, I can take you where you need to go."
The angry guy keeps yelling, at this point unintelligibly. Normal guy behind me yells again, 'Let's go!' and other people on the bus start voicing the same.
The driver takes the hint, closes the doors, and tries to book it, but a public bus doesn't just BOOK it. The wheels spin, their loud squeal filling the air, and the bus takes off... slowly but you can tell the driver is doing his best to get the hell out of there. Angry guy continues his barrage and then we here a big THUMP on the side of the bus. Apparently he was so angry that he threw something... clodlike at the bus. People ducked like there was going to be a driveby.
I couldn't hold my laughter.

Black Star - Radiohead
"What are we coming to?"
After this, the normal kind of stuff happened on the bus. The dog was tucked under one of the chairs, Roger kept going back and forth to the driver while he was driving, trying to have a conversation with him, and when he finally decided to settle down, he pulled out his nice touch-screen smartphone and called "Al" and questioned 'Where da ladies at tonight?'

I got off a few steps later, but I'll always wonder if Roger got some ladies. I mean, a homeless guy with a dog? SO HOT.

Are Unicorns Really That Epic?

I can't go anywhere in the internet without finding unicorns. Trust me, I'm on the internet alot... I have no life, but that's beside the point. There's Robot Unicorns, there's bad unicorn tattoos, there's videos of unicorns speaking nonsense and stealing internal organs. Really, internet, don't you think you're going overboard? When I was younger, the unicorn represented this ultimate being of good. Remember that movie, Legend with that asshole Tom Cruise? Yeah, he wasn't that bad then, but still. There's this scene where the unicorns come out, and they only show themselves to the pure, wholesome, and virgins.
I thought this was the COOLEST THING EVER. I was going to be a virgin FOREVER if it gave me the chance to hang out with a unicorn. Time and people's ability to tarnish things changed everything. We started getting crap like this:


















Really? REALLY? You've taken this image of something so awesome and tarnished it with CRAP. This is only scraping the surface of the defamation of unicorns. I won't even get into the trashy tattoos of unicorns mating with narwhals and ninjas, or whatever.
From now on, I'm over unicorns. It's done. I'm closing the book and giving up my virginity (hi, mom!) because I know now that if a unicorn comes and sees me, it's going to look like this:
Goodbye unicorns.

Amanda W!ns First Post!