Yeah, I know my annual giving-thanks post is a little over a week late. Guess what? Now you know that, too! Well, now that we're all caught up, let's get right to it, shall we? Thanks for everything! Especially, thanks for friends who give me computer games when I can't afford them myself! Those are really the best types of friends, aren't they? Yes, the generous ones! Okay, 'nuff said about that, let's get into the games reviews.
I got a bunch of games from a friend, and bought a couple over the Black Friday Sale on Steam, but I'm just going to focus on one of them, because it's the only one I've been playing lately. Dead Island, Definitive Edition. Let me break down the concept for you, and why I thought it was a cool concept for a game. You're on a tropical island, basically a party town surrounded by beach-babes in bikinis. You have character options, from security personnel to hotel front desk to rap star to ex-football player, each with a different set of level-up perks and weapon specializations. You wake up the morning after the intial outbreak, there's zombies everywhere, and you have to fight to keep your fellow survivors alive and escape the island, all before the oncoming monsoon hits!
Sounds awesome, doesn't it? Killing zombies, fighting through hurricane force winds, and babes in bikinis! What's not to like? Well, let me get to that.
So, let's start with your weapons selections. You get sticks and knives. Broomsticks. Kitchen knives. Which, would be fine, if they were the lower-level items you had to fight your way through before you got the boom-sticks and chainguns, but... it's not. By the time you get to level 10, you get... higher-level broomsticks and kitchen knives. Yeah. It takes a while to get to level 10. I found one gun. It was a defective revolver (literally, that was the name of it, "defective revolver"). With one bullet. And I've played the game like 8 different times, so it's not just a random thing. There's only one gun. I found one molotov cocktail. Just one. Sure, you can get more molotovs later on, but fire is an unpredictable bitch, and will burn the shit out of you if, say, the molotov shatters against an overhanging obstruction while you're trying to throw it, splashes at your feet and burns you into hero-crisps. So. Guns are more precise, and why don't they give them to you? I don't know. Seems cruel, somehow. What did I ever do to them, that I should be burned into crisps? Meanies.
It's rare that I rage-quit games, and even rarer that I rage-uninstall a game, but let me give you the lead-up to this. So, I'm doing missions to help my survivor friends, who aren't immune to the zombie plague, which makes me the go-to guy when it comes to fetching juice-boxes from a gas station on the other side of the island. Yeah, I know, stupid mission, right? People are dying, zombies are everywhere, and the main d-bag who gives me missions decides fucking JUICE BOXES are vital to the survival of his people. Sure, we have food, water, gasoline, a safe place to sleep, but goddammit, why don't we have juice boxes? I don't know, because they're fucking irrelevant? It's not like we have thristy children going DADDY I WANT MY JUICE BOXES! Oh, wait... That's the D-bag giving me the mission. Sounds just like him. Okay, D-bag wants his juice boxes.
So, I head out to get the juice boxes. They're at gas stations, and ONLY gas stations, on opposite sides of the island. Why don't they have juice boxes anywhere else? Who knows? The gas stations are over-run with zombies, because of course they are. So, killing zombies is the fun part! Getting there, no so much. Running to these places is basically out of the question, because you can only carry one carton of juice-boxes at a time, and D-bag mission-giver wants TWO cartons. And you can't even run carrying a carton, because it doesn't go into your inventory, like everything else you pick up. Nope, it fills your arms so you can't hold weapons, and makes it so you can't run or jump, but walk very slowly. I'm carrying like 11 car batteries in my inventory, and I can run like the wind, but a box of juice I have to carry like it's made of lead. Okay. Fine.
So, of course, there's one juice-box at one gas station (the close one) and more at the FAR one. Because, of course there's only one at the close gas station. So, I go into the gas station, get my juice boxes, and then somehow wedge my car in between another car wreck and a tree on the ride home. I can't get by the wedged cars, and I can't go around them, and I can't jump over them because i'm carrying the damned juice box. Okay, time to reload. Keep in mind, that's where I started my day playing this game today. Wedging my car between a tree and a wreck.
Eight hours later, I'm still stuck on this mission. Oh, I've tried to get these juice boxes, multiple times. I've tried doing other mission, hoping it would help. Nothing does. This is a main mission. It's vital to the survival of the world. D-bag NEEDS those fucking juice boxes. So, I figure, look, I've failed this mission multiple times, I'm just going to focus on getting those damn juice boxes and get it out of the way. So, I RUN to the close gas station, and WALK that damn juice box all the way back to my base. One down, one to go. I drive to the far gas station, kill all the zombies, load up with gas and juice boxes (because some asshat along the way needs gas, too), and head back. And there's a woman in a bikini standing by the side of the road, demanding that I help her save her husband, who's trapped under a car. Well, shit!
This shouldn't take long, I think. I park my car, walk down a short hill, and pry open the stuck door. Suddenly, the mission objectives change! I am to protect the trapped guy and his wife! Yeah, okay, I whip out my weapons and brace myself, zombies are shouting, I'm ready! Then... nothing happens. Yep, full-on nothing. I'm standing there with my dick in my hand, and it's all quiet on the western front. So, I step back to the car and the trapped peoples, and see if maybe I'm doing something wrong. Can't click on anything, nothing stands out, guy still trapped in car, woman still screaming save me save me. Okay, wtf? Time to reload. I'm at the side of the road again, woman screaming help me my husband is trapped, yada yada, run down the road, pry open the door, protect against the shouting zombies. I panic, and throw all my molotovs out there, creating a ring of fire around me. Again, nothing comes.
Fuck this, I decide. I walk up the road to my car, which is.. gone. With the juice boxes. I'm stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere, without a car, without my juice boxes, on a broken mission. Okay, fuck this again. Reload. Back at the side of the road again, help me help me, no car, no juice boxes, and no fucking molotovs. When you reload a save, aren't you supposed to get back everything you had? Why TF did you steal my goddamned molotovs? Okay, full quit. Out of the game. Reload. And... I'm.... Not even at the side of the road. I'm somewhere else. Back at another base, where I thought I had finished all the missions. Nope! Apparently I reloaded from a previous reloaded save, but... I have only one save file? And you know what I want to know? Where the shit are my molotovs, and WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY GODDAMN JUICE BOXES???
SO, I try again. hop in the car, drive to the gas stations, kill the zombies, try to load up on jice boxes, and... I can't pick them up. Game is glitched, maybe permanently. I am never getting those goddamned juice boxes, not... Fucking. EVER.
So I rage-quit. And rage-uninstalled. And I am still a little rage-y. I think I might have uninstalled all the other games my friend sent me, too. I am thankful for them, but, I am just not in the mood for them right now. Another time, maybe. Moral of the story? Don't play Dead Island Definitive Edition unless you are a zen meditation master with the patience of a mountain. Which, I thought I was, before I tried to play that fucking game. So, just, don't get that one, I guess? You will probably break something, something expensive.
Oh, and if you're looking for some Xmas game purchase advice from an old gamer, let me give you a heads-up. I haven't actually played Fallout 76, but everything I am hearing about it makes me want to stay far, far away from it. I don't think I'll ever get that one, no matter how much work they put into it, and no matter how many people buy it. From everything I am hearing, it's just, broken. You ever go out on a date, and he/she looks great, sounds great, smells great, and then something minor happens, probably not even something you did, but she just loses her shit over it? And you're thinking "Shit, this one is irreparably broken in more ways than I can fix, I better GTFO!" Yeah, that's the kind of vibes I am getting from Fallout 76. Don't say I didn't warn you.
So, I hope everyone had a nice turkey-day, those who celebrate it, anyways. Looking forward to better, less rage-y games for Xmas! Merry Xmas, if you don't hear from me before then. :-)
