It’s after midnight and finally I can jump online. My boy has been asleep for hours and I’ve put my wife to bed so maybe I can do a little gaming. I log onto LoL and a three of my buddies are in a game. Cool. I’ll do some other stuff while they finish their game.
Suddenly I get a chat from one of them. “We just won two in a row! Want to jump in?”
Hmm. Dilemma. Yeah, I want to jump in, but if we lose, it’ll get blamed on me. Plus I don’t have “mumble” or whatever it is these guys are using instead of Skype so I won’t be able to communicate as well. I type my concerns to my buddies.
“Don’t worry. We’ll blame the random 5th player if we lose.”
After the jump, I’m the random 5th player Continue reading →
I don’t like shopping, in games or life. There’s one friend I know would dig LoL but I hesitate to give him the hardsell because when we played Diablo together, he would spend 20 minutes at a stretch hanging out at the shop and agonizing over loincloths of flames vs. ones of lightning tassels. LoL offers players rows of class-based “recommended items” that’s more than good enough for me. Red ring, blue ring, boots with wings — great, to the front! Combining lower tier items into better ones is called “crafting,” but since the resulting upgrade is instantaneous and debris-free, I consider it more akin to smelting if smelting were either of those things. Again in both games and life, I’ve noticed that any service represented by or involving an impaled eyeball always costs more than I have on me. Once again, the humble coelacanth runs rings around us.
After the jump, why “numbers game” is oxymoronic Continue reading →
“Never played as her before,” the anonymous person playing Sivir types.
“Me neither,” is my chat response. Meaning my champion, Ezreal.
“Me too,” types the dude playing Blitzcrank.
Solidarity. We have waited just north of ten minutes for this match to begin, and we are bonding before heading into the fray. Not with small talk either. We are revealing our little insecurities before heading into battle. I think this is a good sign.
After the jump, you never forget your first rampage Continue reading →
The game has been going on for a while. It’s a close one! Characters are changing dramatically as they get up to levels 13, 14, 15, where their distinct abilities are coming into their own. Dire stuff is happening all around. Now equipment is powerful enough to really matter. I’ve got Karma up to level 14, even though I’ve been mostly sharing a lane. One guy on the other team is level 17 already! We’ve traded a couple of turrets, but no one is getting steamrolled yet. It’s getting real.
I look over at everyone’s level on our team to see how we’re doing. Dingus is level 7.
After the jump, I get by in spite of my friends Continue reading →
Dear game diary,
Sorry for the slow start. I know how excited you get when I write in you; in that respect, as with hotkeys, you’re just like a woman.
After the jump, a confessional Continue reading →
Bromance alert. If a frank discussion about why friends are so freaking awesome and why they are deserving of love is going to make you uncomfortable, you should probably leave the room. Imagine klaxons are sounding if you need an excuse. Tell your loved ones there’s an air-raid and hide under the dining room table. This is about to get real.
I have fallen for this game. Truly. This is not normal for me. I don’t fall for many games. In point of fact, I don’t play many games. I have fallen for this one. And I know, categorically, that I could not have done this on my own. I needed help. For this I am grateful.
After the jump, with a little help from my friends Continue reading →
When you die in Demigod, you get put in a penalty box. You’re looking down from heaven, inert and wistful, while cool stuff happens underneath you, without you. It’s like The Lovely Bones.
After the jump, League of Legends is like A Beautiful Mind meets Confessions of a Shopaholic Continue reading →
Despite (or perhaps in conjunction with) its acronym, LoL features an inordinate amount of trash talk during and after the game. It even parks you in a post-game chat lobby to better facilitate post-drubbing geysers of self-amused braggadocio. “lol yo stats suk on me, lux scrub,” I’m informed after what I naively misconstrued as a lively hour-long exchange of cartoonish yet epic pyrotechnics. “We won,” I counter encouragingly. “I learned at team-building seminars not to fall forward, you might want to try that tactic near turrets when I have full mana there, cheech.” “lok at statz,” he insists. Then sends me a friend request, which upon my acceptance I soon learn he only proposed so that he could continue lambasting me in a larger window without the inconvenience of other spectators chiming in to break up his perfectly sculpted floes of aggression. See, ’cause he was an ice mage. I think. Like even the richest heiress’ wardrobe, 68 champions means seeing at least two shades of cobalt a week.
After the jump, I learn how my misanthropy is supported by cold, hard statistics. Continue reading →
I prefer to think of what I’m doing as playing hard-to-get, rather than labeling it as being cheap, but I’m probably fooling myself. Because there’s this girl I really like. I mean, I’m totally into her. Yes, she’s hot, but it’s more than that. We have a connection like…well…I don’t know if I can explain it. You know how you felt the first time you successfully executed a Zergling rush? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. Something clicks and you get it. I get her. She may be the one.
Plus, she’s easy.
After the jump, I try to get out of the hole I just dug for myself Continue reading →
[Ed. note: League of Legends is the wildly successful the free-to-play (no, really!) RTS known for its unfriendly player community and it’s serious min/max gameplay. We’ve jumped in feet-first and we’ll be writing about it for the next week or so.]
In League of Legends, you don’t build a base or train armies or drag select units. You play a single dude. Such as Shen, a really annoying ninja who keeps killing me. At first, I thought it was because the guy playing Shen was really good.
After the jump, I find out that’s not necessarily the case Continue reading →
My wife ducked her head under the blankets, trying to hide her laughter.
“What?” I’m a bit annoyed at the lack of respect for my enthusiasm, and my accomplishment.
“You’re fighting zombies with a guy named Frank!” I couldn’t understand every one of those words as she said them at the time, because of the unbelievable amount of laughter, but I was able to piece her sentence together nonetheless.
“So?”
“Frank!” More laughter. I kissed her goodnight, clicked off the light, and left the room. My victory over Case West was clearly not going to be lauded appropriately at this time. Better to quit the field.
After the break, a soccer match breaks out Continue reading →
“There is no way of knowing where a survivor is, so you’ll have to explore to find them”
I like that. I really like that. I’m totally up for exploring every nook and cranny of this place. Of finding every survivor and combo-ing every combo. Except that now I’m afraid to explore. I know something is happening at four o’clock. I have no idea what four o’clock actually means in this world, though, and I’m pretty sure if I set off exploring, that Casio-watch alarm beep is going to sound and I’m going to find myself in the red and I’m going to have to start running.
Which is really too bad, because I want to do some good.
Though we never thought that we could lose,
There’s no regret,
If I had to do the same again,
I would my friend, Hernando.
Scratch that. No I wouldn’t. Ungrateful jerk.
After the jump, I have some words with Hernando Continue reading →
“Hey! He’s playing a video game in there!”
I snap out of my haze to see a seven-year old with his face pressed against the sliding glass door of my office. I blink, wondering briefly if my eyes are registering bloodlust and if the kid, and now my son who has joined him, can see the television screen. We’ve always been careful about what we show our little guy, what we allow him to watch. I’m pretty sure exploding zombie heads isn’t on the list. I quickly realize that the two of them are at too extreme an angle to see any of the action, so I pause the game and wave them off. I’m working here. Honestly. Also, I can do without the accusatory tone, kid. So I’m playing a video game in the middle of the day? So what?
“You guys go play. That’s why we’re having a playdate. So you can play,” I say to them through the glass. “Go!”
They scatter. I lock back in. Previously on DR, I was sad. Today…today is a happy day.
After the jump, I level up Continue reading →
“WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT!” I yell to Frank, laughing in delight as we leave the bathroom and I notice, for the first time, the huge arrow hanging over my head in the center of the screen. “That’s gonna be helpful, I think,” I mutter to myself.
“Duh,” says Frank. Well, no he doesn’t. Not really. He’s taken to ignoring me at these moments. I sense he doesn’t have a great deal of respect for me, and I don’t suppose I blame him since my inability to manage the clock keeps getting him arrested. So my delighted laughter is short-lived, quickly transmogrifying into a chuckle of humiliation, and just as quickly disappearing altogether as I remember that we’re in the red zone. We’ve got to get a move on.
After the jump, pointy arrows, oh pointy pointy… Continue reading →
“You’re doing what?”
“A game diary. Tom asked me to do a game diary.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Well,” I clear my throat and take another bite of soup, trying not to look like I’m stalling. “Well, I play my way through a game and write about the experience. Taking notes along the way, kind of like I do with movies. We post the bits I write as entries, like journal entries. It’s one of Tom’s ideas for the relaunch.”
As she takes a bite of salad and mulls this over, I get our six-year old boy to eat another green bean and try to gauge my wife’s demeanor. Her suspicious look has not yet emerged —
Oh, I spoke too soon.
After the jump, I bring dishonor to my family. Continue reading →
