I’m still riffing on pop culture. In the last post, I just shit all over several TV shows just because I can. And because I don’t get to do it in real life that often as I don’t like yucking other people’s yums. But I also don’t like being made to feel I have to like what others like. That’s where my contrarian nature comes into play, honestly. The more someone tells me/insists I’m going to like something, the more I resist. Not even on purpose, but my brain just hunkers down. In part it’s because I don’t like being told what to do, yes, but it’s mostly because I know my tasctes the best. I know what I do and don’t like. Other people don’t. It’s that’s real. It’s the same with gifts. Most people cannot buy me somethnig I’ll actually like, especially when I used to wear earrings. Funnily enough, my mother was able to get it right more often than not–and she’s the only person.
K and Ian are both on the mark, albeit in very different ways. I don’t expect gifts from anyone else, and I prefer not to get them, honestly. Give me money. Money is great! I know that some people don’t like it because it’s not thoughtful, but I’m a grown-ass person. I can buy myself whatever I want/need.
Anyway. Let’s talk about video games. It’s one aspect of pop culture in which I partake. But, I realized a few years ago that I don’t actually like video games in general. I had to go through several popular games that left me cold before I came to this realization. Here’s the thing. I like FromSoft games, and more specifically, the Dark Souls trilogy and Elden Ring, and I like some roguelike/lites, and I like some cozy games.
Here are popular games that I tried and did not like. Skyrim (Bethesda). Well, let me be more precise. I loved the first fifty hours despite how shitty the combat is. Remember, Dark Souls is the first game I played with actual combat (and not just constant clicking). Going from Dark Souls combat to Skyrim combat was a shock, and in not a good way. But I soldiered on despite the other flaws (and there were many) because it was enjoyable.
I want to be fair. I think the reasoon I turned on it was my own damn fault, and I’ll tel you why. I have an obsessive nature, which means I stick with one big game at a time. And I play it for hours on end, even if I’m getting sick of it. That happens at the end of every From game, and it started to happen with Skyrim around the 50-hour mark. In addition, while I was enjoying the game, there were plenty of things that annoyed me in addition to the bad combat. One, the cumbersome fast travel system. Two, and this is a big one, the ridiculous encumbrance limit. You pick up five potatoes, and you’re over the limit. Add that to the limited fast travel, and it gets annoying fucking fast. I found an unlimited horse mod (so your horse can carry everything for you) and installed that bad boy IMMEDIATELY. Being overburdened is tnot fun. Yeah, maybe it’s realistic, but there are fucking dragons in this game.
No. Body. Likes. Encumbrance. As. A. Game. Mechanism.
The other thing I did that made my experience terrible was try to do all the factions simultaneously. Not a good idea. Again, my own fault. The other thing that I hated was the prison bit where they took everything away from me. That’s not fun, and it ground everything to a halt. But it was really the factions bit that turned me off the game. Trying to cram everything in the last couple dozen hours took all the shine off the game for me. I HATED playing by hour sixty and just wanted it to be over. So I rushed the last part of it and finished it with hate in my heart.
I never picked it up again. I had a good time playing it for the most of the game, but the last part really soured my opinoin of it. It also ripped off the Bandaid and made it very clear that the flaws of the game were a feature and not a bug. Do I regret playing it? No. Do I have any impulse to play it again? Also no.
I hated Fallout by the same developer. God, I tried to like it, but it just did not appeal to me at all. Again, I think it’s more a case of a bad fit than it being a bad game. Oh, I mean Fallout 3, by the way. I don’t like apocalyptic media (first strike) or, as I said, bad combat (strike two), and the exploration didn’t make up for it. Plus, the morality system seemed so facile and binary. And needless. Did it really do anything? Maybe later on, but not in the first quarter of the game. I got to the town, then ran into a mirelurker that killed me over and over again. I could not kill it. I don’t think it’s an ordinary mirelurker. Hell, it might not be a mirelurker at all, but I could not get past it. More to the point, I did not want to get past it. I gave up and never went back to the game. I was relieved to quit it, honestly. It felt like such a grueling chore to try to play it.
I don’t have any consoles, so I can’t speak to those games. Oh, I did inherit a 3DS from Ian, and I tried whatever Monster Hunter game was on that handheld. Something Ultima. And I hated it with a fiery pasion. It was awkward to play that way, and the paintball, and the jumping to different areas, and the fucking fetch quests….It was a nightmare, and I gave up after three or four hours. I remember what did it to me, too. It was a terrible find three eggs and bring them back to camp fest.
Side note: I heard someone who loved these games talk about how she and other long-term players would haze newbies by making them break the eggs they were carrying on one of these quests. She was laughing as she recounted this (not at all) amusing tale, which horrified me. Way to gatekeep! Way to make it even harder for new players! Way to say, “This game isn’t for you”! Contrast that with another longtime player who got into it because there were a bunch of old-timers who answered her every question and babysat her on quests.
Anyway, I was doing the egg fetch quest and had fifty minutes to do it (all (or most) of the quests are fifty minutes long). I thought this would be plenty of time. Oh, boy, was I so naive. SO NAIVE. There is a map, kind of, but it’s not very useful, and when you go from one section to another (and you can only see one section at a time), it takes forever to load. And you can only go from certain sections to certain sections. And, of course, the eggs were scattered all over the goddamn map.
Oh, and you can’t run with them. And if you drop them, you have to start over again. And you can only carry one at a time. I got the f irst two in the box and managed to find the third. I was carrying it across the map as fast as I could as I watched the time tick down. I was about ten steps from the box when the time ran out. And I failed the quest. And I never played the game again. I thin that’s valid. More tomorrow.