This doesn’t usually happen to me. Honestly. As far as gaming is concerned, I’m a man who knows what he wants. Constraints, both hourly and financially, have coloured me ruthless. Unconsciously I established a gaming radar, a compass whose needle reliably swung toward the next point of interest on the big map o’ games. As the years rolled by and scientific advances paved the way for more technologically sophisticated metaphors the compass became a GPS, conveniently highlighting important gaming landmarks and ushering me towards them by way of a big green arrow and, in moments of frankly worrying abstraction, a calm yet incredibly sultry female voice. It’s cool to hear voices in your head provided you know they’re not real, right? Good, I thought so. And since you mention it, yes, I have been working out. Kind of you to notice.
Anyhow, the GPS took me where I needed to be. It plotted the quickest route to the cities of Moa Therma and Arc Prime, each one a tangled nightmare of sadistic hairpins and gravity-defying loops which appear to have been mapped out by a man who, moments before he drew up the construction plans, was spun around 50 times with a bucket on his head by a mischievous work-experience student. It guided me to Midgar, where I spent a considerable amount of time in the company of an angular band of spikey-haired miscreants who, no matter how hard I tried to discourage them, couldn’t seem to walk 10 paces without starting a ruckus with one bio-mechanical aberration or another. It led me through the fog and into Silent Hill for the first time, though my visits there have become less frequent now that the Town Hall is staffed by Yanks, all of whom have seen fit to turn a deliciously sinister playground for the senses into a depressingly beige waiting room for the imagination (recently twinned with Racoon City).
It turns out, however, that my long-trusted cranial guidance system has a flaw, one which has only come to light in the last couple of weeks:
My screen is full. Where once there was clear, distinct green lines that lead towards the few proud bastions of interactive awesomeness in a dreary wasteland of clipping issues and pointless grind, there is now a dazzling emerald beacon shining so brightly that even my mind’s eye is squinting from the glare. For probably the first time in my life, I have been blinded by the light of collective excellence.
My compass has no idea which way to point. It spins wildly in all directions, like a drunken prima-ballerina in a tumble-dryer. Do I leap gracefully across the rooftops of Venice, or drift around Laguna Seca in a Bugatti Veyron? Do I grab Clementine, summon the Deuce and rock my way into the very bowels of Hell itself, or take to the decks and scratch myself silly to a Daft Punk / Queen mash-up? Do I plunder the Borderlands for every scrap of loot I can find, or elevate my kleptomania to a global level with Nathan Drake and his realistically wet t-shirt?
Like any aspiring galactic overlord worth his mettle, I want it all. If I could walk into Game tomorrow and sweep every one of those polycarbonate sirens (yes, even the ones that aren’t actually out yet) off the shelves and into my arms, I would. But being restricted to only one this month, maybe two if I sell my nan for spare parts, has rendered me utterly incapable of making a decision. I am circling the roundabout with no idea which exit to take. Every time I veer towards what I believe to be the correct decision I catch sight of the box-art sleeve of another triple-A title and choke.
So, if you see me on your way to one of these islands of enticement, these cities of gold, these gleaming towers of WIN, feel free to wind down your window and offer me directions. Otherwise the only thing I’m sure to get this month is motion sickness.
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