WatchDogs
All posts tagged WatchDogs
It’s never been easy to pick the right game. Finances, hype, word of mouth and even luck are contributing factors. Applying preferential distinctions to a game that’s most suitable to you’re current needs can be a difficult process if you’re mind or heart aren’t fully invested. Prioritising quality can simply be a matter of perception, sometimes even one of convenience and availability. For some it’s difficult to be as discerning. I’ve experienced my fair share of mistakes, I still shake my head in disappointment every time I think about the Order 1886 or Watchdog’s. The problem is that you don’t know if a game is terrible with any certainty unless you buy and play them extensively! Of course such a commitment comes with inherent risks, but sometimes the benefits outweigh those risks. So how can you negate the prospect of having to trade week old game with as much substance as a vegetarian lasagne? What constitutes as value? Experimentation? Genial familiarity? Some bargain bin obscurity?! There’s an increasing number of pros and cons and you’re very conscientious of making the wrong purchase. For as long as I’ve been responsible for my own video game purchases I have adhered to 5 principle regulations when deciding on what to buy. They aren’t perfect, in fact by my estimates these 5 rules have filtered out roughly 6% of the diuretic excretions I would have otherwise purchased. At any rate I, deliberated through my own experiences have noted these precepts for you’re benefit…..and because I couldn’t think of anything else to write about this week!
Life’s not fair, especially in regards to the domesticity of first world pestilence. I am currently slumped on a sofa, my greasy hair matted by listless sleep, with my encumbering depression facilitated by my own glib omissions. Don’t pretend you don’t why! Your feeble attempt at professing simulated hesitancy hasn’t fooled me, I can intuit that you know exactly what has irked me! (The illustration above probably gives you some indication) I’m consumed by the piety of abstinence, contemplating the most lamentable exclusion with the most advanced state of solemnity tarnishing my features. I access everything with the most studious of considerations, purchase content on the basis of conclusive affirmation rather than circumstantial evidence or hearsay. How did I get this so wrong? How had I missed this?! I foolishly adjudged it as just another specious attempt at clasping more money from my already depleted bank account, that now glares at me with austere bereavement at its penurious owner. “No Karl! I can’t lend you any more money. You’ve spent too much as it is!” Pfff, it won’t be any good I had convinced myself weeks before, a motion only further legitimized by the ubiquity of publication’s hurling reciprocal plaudits on its clearly humble composition. “This could be the first truly great adaptation” they stated. “A sleeper hit worthy of its cherished literary peer” bespoke another. Well if their claiming its good, then it’s defiantly something we should avoid. Because when has anyone in the games industry ever accurately interpreted the quality of a game from deceptive previews? Curse you Shadow of Mordor!
My initial appraisal of it as being a nothing but a flawed, benign approximation that violates the thematic duality and parallelism of Tolkien’s work for a less sophisticated narrative, typified by the revenge premise and investment in exulting a mirth of combative tyranny and abundant violence was flagrantly misguided. Now dutifully rescinded by the universal admiration lavished on Shadows amiably adapted perspective. Now I find that I’m internally weeping, augmented by the incessant solidarity of gamers that have conformed to the same primary function of aggravating me, by exchanging their own admiration for its fortuitous accession. “Oh well this so cool!” “Yeah I know, who knew Mordor had so much to offer?” “Yeah. You’d have to be stupid not to buy this game!” Shut up! I hate you all you ridiculously observant and well-informed jerks! You’re the suckiest sucks that ever sucked!……I have done really well over the course of the year; spending money only when it was drastically necessary, and reserving funds for the top quality games pending release. My imposed retention’s only yielded with the acquisition of WatchDog’s, before months later purchasing Destiny; 2 mildly entertaining games that never really warranted premeditated orders. Never listen to a word I have to say ever again people, because now their finally is a game worth getting, and I can’t afford it!
See if I care. You can keep your stupid little people and their…..big feet…..and…..and your stupid hairy wizards…….and little Vikings…….and……and……..and your even stupider (it is a word!) power rings! Because I don’t care. Nope. So…..so……neeerrr! *Humph*
Did you get Shadow of Mordor? And if so…….shut up! I don’t want to know you stupid head!
“Please sit down, make yourself comfortable. Can I get you a beverage, perhaps a tea or coffee?”
“No Doctor, I’m fine thank you.”
“Very well, let us proceed. Incidentally how have you been since our last visit? Have your frenetic sleep patterns diminished?”
“No, not really I’m sad to admit. I still haven’t quite recovered from the, um, incident. The nightmares persist.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Are they simply aberrations of the pre-existing trauma or have the terrors intensified?”
“I feel like I’m going out of my mind. Nothing makes sense! I wake up perspiring, more exhausted than I did before I went to sleep. You’ve got to help me, I implore you!”
“OK, settle down. I need to know precisely the cause of the distress before I can make any clerical diagnosis. These dreams for instance, based on our previous session, appear to be paranoid disillusion’s instigated by some trauma you haven’t yet specified. They are vague, yes? Initially unfurling with brief excerpts of clarity before the vivid pronunciations become distorted, tell me more about these.”
“Well its as you say, distorted, confused. It’s a collation of various imagery, meshed into one cluttered vision.”
“Please continue.”
“I’m walking through a “zone”, a sort of Kill zone. Everything is sharp, crisp, clear but somehow bereft of originality yet somehow familiar, as though I’ve seen it all before. Then a mechanised “Titan falls” in front of me, provoking and scolding my adherence to an alternate means of gratification. Then there is the canine.”
“Ah yes, the dog you purported last time. This hound appears to be a permanent fixture in your subconscious ever since your, exposure. But I digress, please continue your narrative.”
“These dogs just sit observing me with listless, calculated infatuation. Like “Watch dogs”. Barking the same incessant digits!”
“So your still experiencing the same numerical sequence in your dreams?”
“Yes, the very same numbers; 2,0,1,4. These same accursed digits adorned its gilded collar too. 2-0-1-4. That disappointing series of numbers.”
“The symptoms that you have so eloquently asserted appear to have become a more pronounced manifestation. Has there been some mitigating influence that has exasperated your preliminary nocturnal affliction?”
“Well…..”
“Yes?”
“Well, I did play Destiny.”
“My god! This is serious. You are suffering from acute “Hypermitosis”, to give it its clinical name, which is when the hype receptors in your brain contort into something so profound that it duplicates this same sense of euphoria through every sensory receptor in your body. As a practitioner I would usually prescribe some medicinal remedy for your persistent ailment. Luckily for you the local administration recently commissioned me to devise an alternate means of therapy, without the need for prescription medication or referrals to specialised sectors. Instead I’m going to prescribe an aggressive form of antibiotic’s called LOU’s.”
“LOU’s?”
“The Last Of Us, definitive edition to be specific. Though not specifically devised for these types of acute insomnia, I believe that the appropriate dosage could reduce the diligent inflammation. Play up to 6 hours a day, never on an empty stomach and make sure to drink plenty of fluids such as beer, whisky or perhaps a Jagger bomb. You aren’t allergic to reverent story telling, energetic and riveting characters and fun are you?”
“No. NO! Of Course not.”
“Good. Take this…oh, and it goes without saying that you should abstain from any social interventions or extraneous stimulation, and consult me again in 2 to 3 weeks, by which time you should have fully recovered.”
“Thank you Doctor. Thank you.”
“Hype is an insidious affliction.”
I’ve never been inherently proficient at gaming. I’ve never really asserted dominance over a game without at least a sturdy resolve or resilience. It normally transpires that I’m in such a rush to reach the end that my provisions are rarely ameliorated to full effect, as in the case of The Last Of Us. I’m consciously aware of my limitations, discerning many culpable weak points that are ruthlessly exploited in an on-line capacity, but I still adamantly advocate these verifiable admissions with a presumed ignorance to the contrary. This dearth of narrowed credulity is an evident tuition of convenience and intuition, as I gain a periodic feel for the game. I dismiss any other stratagem with brazen flippancy, methodically accessing situations with granulated approach, competent in the respect that I posses a firm grasp of the basic fundamentals; I can’t access this door so I’ll find an alternate route, I can’t bypass this highly elaborate lock with my own simple brain capacity, so I’ll throw my controller across the room in a blind fury, dislodge the accursed disc from my console and shout expletives at my own image that is reflected in its circumference form, rather than resolve the applicable statures with composed deliberation (stupid WatchDogs!). So imagine my surprise when my renounced mediocrity amounted to, well success in a competitive Killzone match.
The Match began in much the same way I have become acquainted with; my predictable capitulation and death. After succumbing to an additional expiration I began to settle, atoning for my previous demeanour’s by landing precision head shots with a couple of clandestine manoeuvres. My covert insertion into enemy territory provided sufficient indentations for reconnaissance and cover from any pursuers wayward assaults. Our opponents were seemingly content to merely delay conflict, congregating in a little formation at the foot of their base. Me, in a rare moment of decisive clarity threw a subversive device with such encroaching velocity that it decimated half of their team! The dispersion range was limited to around 10 feet, leaving the smaller pockets of resistance so disorientated by the blast that I could defeat them with cursive pace. Suitably poised and falsely asserting an accursed swagger, polarised in this instance by my sudden need to pop, lock and drop, I absolved, curiously awaiting for the typical declination that was strangely festooned on my competitors as they continued to yield to my desultory enmity. After multiple kills and a brief recovery period to replenish my dwindling artillery, I resumed my inexplicable dominance by dispatching two distracted aggressors by quickly converging in their vicinity and swiftly alleviating his/her lingering mortality. Verging on the faint resemblance of proficiency, I continued to utilise my feral aggression and dispel another heavily secreted enemy before ascending a steep gradient and succumbing to the same affliction. The match was over.
Judging by the numerical affluence adorning their pseudonyms that indicate the number of challenges each competitor has completed, the match was frequented by visibly accomplished veterans more accustomed to success and dominance; but not this round. Though many were verbally disgruntled by my usurping sovereignty, as I continually warded off a barrage of looming hate and japes often exerted as “noob”, confirmation of my authority was affirmed when the leader-board clarified my position as the bee’s actual knees, where I found it prudent to mark this miraculous occasion with a provocative robot dance (which I couldn’t possibly demonstrate here). I never could have conceived that I would have ascended to such opulent heights. I’m by nature the back up, the supportive pinion in a greater apparatus, the superfluous associate that rears up with interspersed penetration when warranted, the acoustic guitar in a metal band, the lettuce in a burger king whopper, the bra on ample bosomed lady, the…..well you get the idea. This was a domain reserved for the exhibitionists that, for a brief period was accosted by a player of modest ability, a player regularly relegated to the fringes of the statistical relevance, a participant who on many occasions throws grenades when I had actually intended to aim, and a gamer that wasted 10 mins attempting to figure out where the discs are inserted into a PS4 back in November. Yeah. That’s right guys. Me!
What was your favourite on-line accomplishment?
Game, Complain, Repeat 