Arkham City: Preliminary Complaints
The glory of Arkham Asylum was that whenever Batman died, you never felt like it was his fault. Batman was a chained panther, so eager to beat up criminals that you had the feeling if you dropped the controller, Batman might keep punching Joker gang members because he had not dispensed SUFFICIENT JUSTICE.
The controls were so tight, and Batman so obviously competent, that any time you died, it felt like you had let Batman down. You were insufficient. Batman remained bad-ass.
Which is why it’s such a shame that Arkham City turns Batman into Rain Man.
I was a little worried about Arkham City because it was an open-ended game, a la Grand Theft Auto, as opposed to the “Walk through this level ’til you hit the cut scene” of Arkham Asylum. And I get lost going to the bathroom. As a man with no sense of direction, in a city that’s designed for rooftop swings and alleyway scuffles, I was terrified that Arkham City would just leave me wandering in circles, desperately trying to find my way to the next mission.
And lo! Guess what happened? There’s a map, but no obvious way to set a waypoint marker – or at least it hasn’t come up on the tutorials yet, and the “instruction manual” is literally a two-page sheet of emptiness that warns you about extended playing time. So I’m flailing about the city, not sure which direction I’m facing, bringing up the map and going fifty feet, bringing up the map and making sure I haven’t gotten turned around, bringing up the map and…
OH SHUT UP BATMAN.
See, the problem with Arkham City is that when Batman’s on the case, because he can go anywhere, Batman helpfully reminds you of what you’re supposed to do next by muttering it to himself. “I have to scale the belltower to find the location of the shooter,” he says. And that’s great! Thanks for the help, Bats!
Then, thirty seconds later, he says it again. “I have to scale the belltower to find the location of the shooter.” Which is somewhat less helpful, because not very much time has passed, and Bats has not pointed towards the belltower, nor given any other indication in a possible direction where it might lie.
“I have to scale the belltower to find the location of the shooter.” “I have to scale the belltower to find the location of the shooter.” “I have to scale the belltower to find the location of the shooter.” Every thirty fucking seconds. Eventually my wife was shouting, “SHUT UP BATMAN SHUT UP.”
Batman might as well be wandering around muttering, “Ten minutes to Wapner. Ten minutes to Wapner.” It’s like Navi’s “Hey! Listen!” only not quite as helpful – because despite all of Bats’ arsenal, a simple compass doesn’t seem to be one of them.
This makes Batman not a caged panther, but an annoying pal. “You’re the great fucking detective,” you say. “How about just grappling hooking your way to where you need to be so I can punch some more bad guys?” But no. “IhavetoscalethebelltowerIhavetoscalethebelltowerIhavetoscalethebelltowerGAH NOW I KNOW HOW THE JOKER FEELS.”
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun punching bad guys. But the game seems woefully short on explaining the user experience – there was one level where three switches needed to be shut off to stop Batman from dying to steam. (Yes, in my game, badass Batman died from walking into steam.) And I spent ten minutes hitting each switch with a Batarang, as had been explained in a previous segment, but there wasn’t enough time – I’d fire one Batarang, and by the time the next one hit, the other switches had flipped back on again. (Because they are, apparently, mysterious switches that flip back on by themselves. Happen all the time.)
It wasn’t until I broke down and looked at a cheat guide, which told me, “Just tap the button three times quick. You don’t even need to aim. Batman will do that for you.” GOOD TO FUCKING KNOW, ARKHAM CITY, THANKS FOR EXPLAINING THIS RAPID-FIRE BUTTON IN THE MANUAL – WAIT, THERE’S NO MANUAL – OR THE TUTORIAL THAT DOESN’T EXIST. THANKS FOR LETTING ME SPEND ALL THIS GODDAMNED TIME AIMING.
So it’s not a terrible game, but my opinion of it after two hours of play is that it’s a fairly unpolished addition to Arkham Asylum. Fortunately, Arkham Asylum was so polished that I can beat up random bad guys all day and still feel pretty good about myself.
I'm Not Sure If I Want To Play It….
…but damn if this 360-degree playspace for FPSes doesn’t look impressive as all hell.
Now, while the whole “run around and shoot” thing looks awesome, I’m not sure how those teeny treadmills underneath are going to keep me in the frame when I start running in terror. Plus, like the Kinect, we are slothful gamers who will collapse in a puddle. It’s one thing to play Marines with your fingers, another to do it with your whole body.
Still, I wanna at least see.
Strange Connections Of Death And Kinkajous
Those of you who have seen my profile on OKCupid or my default FetLife picture may have seen this photo of me before:
Yes. That is me, with a kinkajou on my head. (If you must be a pedant, look at this photo and STFU.)
I wore a merry kinkajou for Purim at my um-daughter Carolyn’s school. They held a festival, complete with a crazy petting zoo where I have, over the years, gotten to pet baby bears, baby cougars, baby kangaroos, kinkajous, monkeys, and all sorts of other spectacular animals. Every year I showed up and petted something utterly insane.
There were rumors, of course. The wildlife sanctuary had many complaints, filed by its neighbors. It was being investigated for not really knowing how to take care of its animals – but like a crazy cat lady magnified a thousand times, the owner would take in literally any animal as refuge from anywhere, no questions asked. He cared about all sorts of wildlife, and wanted it protected.
But hey! He brought kinkajous. And tiny bears you could pet. So I didn’t ask too much, not that it was really my place to investigate.
Well, turns out the owner was found dead under “mysterious circumstances” after spending a year in jail on federal weapons charges. Just to add a touch of movie panache to this whole caper, all the animals have escaped and the cops are now having to shoot wild, aggressive animals in the street. (Maybe they’re not all aggressive – that has a touch of police justification about it – but still, you see a full-sized black bear that has no fear of humans walking down main street, followed by a pack of wolves, I’m not gonna blame anyone for flipping out a bit.)
Numerous people have emailed me asking whether I know about this. The answer? I’ve worn the guy’s merchandise. And now he’s dead, and Zanesville is thoroughly 12 Monkied.
I’m not sure whether that makes this photo cooler or worse.
Blogging About Blogging Is A Sin, Part 2: The Slowdown
One of the things any blogger of note learns to deal with is Audience Creep.
Which is to say that as more people read you, the chances that someone is going to tell you, correctly, that your ass is showing expand exponentially. And as more people flood in from inbound links, the chances that someone is going to misinterpret that poorly-worded sentence of yours also expands exponentially. And the chances that your comments threads will explode in a ball of flame expand exponentially.
(…The chances that someone will even point out that you are using the word “exponentially” wrong expand exponentially.)
For some, this isn’t a problem. “I just write what I want, and fuck them,” they say. And that’s great. But the rest of us write these passionate blog entries on meaningful topics to try to convince others. We want to have people going, “Yes, what a fine point,” not Duelling Blog Posts back and forth from outsiders debating What She Really Meant.
So your blogging starts to take on a distinctly accumulative method. You start getting that Spider-Sense tingle of “Oh, this is dangerous territory, I best step carefully,” because you know this entry is a container of gelignite if you don’t handle it properly. And you’re not looking to create flame wars, but productive discussion.
So you write the entry, and that Spider-Sense is saying, “Oh, people might think I’m saying this, so I’d better clarify here. And this is perhaps not the most enlightened gut response, so I’d better change that.”
This has three results:
1) You write better blog entries.
2) That are a lot longer.
3) That take more effort.
And then when those blog entries hit, they tend to generate such discussion that you need to monitor the feedback to ensure that people aren’t axing each other in the head in the comments. (Because really, as your blog-moderator, you’re responsible.) And it’s good, but it takes more effort.
Not every blog entry is like this; your life updates aren’t, your musings on your core competency aren’t (I can dash off relationship entries like there’s no tomorrow), your silly humor pieces aren’t.
But if you want to discuss Feminism or Politics or even trends in the industry you work in where people read you, you slow down a bit. Stop. Make sure that you’re not just going to make a fool of yourself, but that by writing this you will come off as the sort of person who others think of as well-spoken.
This takes time.
Between my novel and my job and my wife and girlfriends, I feel bad, because I literally have more entries than I have time to write, and manage. I still want to get back around to the Gay In YA thing, and I have some more musings on Occupy Wall Street, and of course a thousand other weighty entries that would take time to do properly.
I do about one “serious” entry a week, and that takes me an hour (including reading it to Gini to ensure that I’ve gotten it right). I know other bloggers have done the same. If you’re going to make a big stink in public, you mise well make sure it smells the right way.
But that is a slowdown. And it means your blog becomes more work, less “Let’s go here and play!”
Is it any wonder why people head towards Twitter?
It’s not like that for everyone, of course, and if you have nobody reading you or if you’re the sort of person who can naturally sound good on the first draft (Scalzi comes to mind as someone who’s quite excellent at that), then fuck it. Go. But for many of us, it’s as though our blog has become this bubbling stew of things we’d like to write about, but don’t want to do the topic the dishonor of doing it improperly.
I’m not sure how you fix that. if you can fix that. But it’s there, and it’s probably another part of LJ’s slow fade.
Are Female Time Lords Bigger On The Inside?
Jeff Mach’s upcoming Geeky Kink Event in New Jersey has been really knocking me out with its array of nerdy sex – naked Rock Band events, tentacle chairs, all sorts of burlesque dancers. But this – this – makes me envious more than anything:
See that? That is a TARDIS BONDAGE BOX (still being built). If you have ever felt like taking Tom Baker’s scarf and getting a little crazy, well, this is your place to get your Sonic Screwdriver action on.
Furthermore, note the glory hole in the center. Yeah, they went there.
…they’re building two of these for your pleasure.
Alas, I cannot go, since New Jersey is pretty damned far away, but if you happen to be free in the area come the weekend of November 4th, well, I’d get tickets fast. You can get tickets cheaper until the 20th, and then they’re all more expensive. Plus, they seem to be selling out. Fast. I wonder why?
Bring On The Bad Guys!
If you’re going to date people, you need to get used to being the bad guy.
Not that you should set out to be a black-hatted villain in your relationships, of course. But as my Momma always said, “If you act like a rug, don’t be surprised to find feet on your face.”* People will, unthinkingly, take what you give them. If you cancel a night out with the boys to spend it at home with her, she’ll think that the boys couldn’t have meant that much to you. If hate to interrupt him because he’s blathering on and on and you don’t want to be rude, he’ll think that you’re naturally quiet.
Hence, you need to patrol your boundaries, politely and with a sense of self-investigation, to make sure that people aren’t disrespecting you.
Thing about boundaries is that if they’re violated enough times, and you can’t convince them to stop, then you eventually have to take dramatic action – usually in terms of leaving that person’s company. And that’s good! You don’t want to hang around someone who cheats on you, or insults you in front of company, or even just buys a cat you didn’t want and then leaves you to clean up the litterbox.
Problem is, one person’s reasonable request is another person’s threat. Nobody’s the bad guy in their own story – which leaves you as the villain. Your “stop insulting me in front of other people” is their “Christ, they don’t know how to take a joke.” Your “I don’t like cleaning the litter box for an animal I did not request” is her “They hate animals, and are stupid clean freaks.”
And, of course, when you stop seeing them because of things they did, you’re automatically the bad guy. After all, you left them for some dumb problem nobody else would have cared about! You destroyed a healthy friendship over something trivial! I mean, if this was a real problem, they would have fixed it, right?
That means you’re the jerk.
I blame movies for what happens next: you want a sense of closure. You want that courtroom scene where you face down your enemy, hair wet from the thunderstorm outside, and convince them not only that you were completely justified, but that they should be ashamed of what they did!
Too many people can’t leave without having the story be about them becoming the hero of both people’s stories. Without their former friend seeing the light, and repenting.
You might as well quit your job and buy tickets at the lottery, man.
So you stay, and you keep fighting in this horrid relationship, and you feel the guilt because s/he thinks I’m bad, there must be something to that, and you wind up in this decaying, ugly relationship with someone who doesn’t respect you.
What’s the solution?
Did you read my first sentence?
Be the bad guy. Don’t require them to acknowledge your correctness. Be confident that you know this is disrespectful behavior, and you would feel lessened if you stayed with someone who did that. Don’t aim for that magnificent sense of closure, because you’ll get it – just not the closure of “S/he agrees with me,” but the scorched-earth closure of apocalyptic battles and eternal enemies.
Walk away. They’ll think you’re bad. So what? Is this their story, or yours?
Be confident that your needs have worth, and that you’re not going to pull the trigger unless it’s that hurtful to you. Be careful friending new people, lest they wriggle in like this. And be good.
* – Okay, my Momma didn’t say that. Nor do I refer to her as “My Momma.” In fact, I made this up on the spot. But I was so proud of the way it sounded, I needed to attribute it elsewhere to give it that well-worn patina of “Timeless advice.”