A Few of My Favourite Things
I have an extensive collection of video nasties.
And by far the nastiest video in my collection is The Sound Of Music.
Anyhow … here are a few of my favourite things from my gaming collection over the years.
Assassin’s Creed:
Shooting ‘brutes’’ with berserk darts and watching them swing their axes at all and sundry, knocking seven shades of shit out of each other — I could do it all day, if only I could carry enough darts.
Bioshock Infinite:
I wouldn’t say shooting refugees were my favourite activity as such in Infinite … but I’m glad I did 😉
Blood:
Kicking the decapitated heads around like footballs — I often forgot to progress the game any further for five or ten minutes at a time!
Borderlands:
Beating the living crap of midgets with a length of pipe is more fun than I can express — I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard … or for so long. Unless, of course, it was after shooting ‘brutes’’ with berserk darts in Assassin’s Creed. Or watching my opponents attempt to defend themselves from the robot sentinels in Rage (that’s seriously funny too).
Incendiary weapons are great — it’s loads of fun watching my opponents thrash about as they burn.
Dishonored:
Setting people alight with incendiary bolts and watching them thrash about, screaming.
Fable:
Far too many to even remember now, but … off the top of my head …
Taking over the brothel and taking advantage of the ‘opportunities’.
Thrusting my groin, suggestively, towards a class of kindergartners.
Beating said kindergartners repeatedly.
Robbing people.
Seducing people and then not pursuing the matter.
Sacrificing my allies and taking their souls rather than going on a long and dangerous mission.
Kicking chickens as far as I can.
Buying properties, renting them out and then turfing the tenants out onto the street at two in the morning.
Messiah:
Pinning people to the wall by the head with the harpoon gun and watching them convulsively twitch.
Possessing people, jumping them off high places, rushing down to ground level and watching them crawl around, wailing “My knees! Oh, God, my KNEES!”
Rage:
Making the corpses twitch when i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶f̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ looting them.
Shooting the big guys’ gas tanks and then watching them rocket around the place before exploding.
Taking (an effectively limitless supply of) robots with me, letting them loose, doing my best to keep up with the trail of carnage, laughing myself silly as I watch my opponents struggle to keep them at bay whilst I add insult to injury by popping a cap in their head or ass from a distance with the monoculared pistol.
Turning people and things into a fine mist of blood with the pop rockets.
Rise of the Triad:
When they drop to their knees, pleading “I have a wife/children,” and I shoot them in the face anyway.
Sniper Elite 3+:
Watching bullets rip through internal organs and shatter bones in slow motion, making my victims’ eyes bulge out of their heads in agony — the best one ever went through the top of the head of a prone sniper, continuing in a line through the heart, liver and out through the groin.
The Sims:
For two months in 1999, I got up, went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, washed my hands, shaved, showered, prepared breakfast, ate breakfast, cleared up, washed up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, dressed, went to work, came home, prepared the evening meal, ate the evening meal, cleared up, washed up and played The Sims, during which I told ‘someone else’ to get up, go to the bathroom, flush the toilet, wash their hands, shave, shower, prepare breakfast, eat breakfast, clear up, wash up, go to the bathroom, brush their teeth, dress, go to work, come home, prepare the evening meal, eat the evening meal, clear up, wash up, watch TV, go to the bathroom, flush the toilet, wash their hands, brush their teeth, get undressed, shower and go to bed.
Then I went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, washed my hands, brushed my teeth, got undressed, showered and went to bed.
After two months I had an epiphany … and never played The Sims again.
However, I ought to mention that I got bored after about the first two days and went off-course somewhat …
My first sims died of shame.
I wouldn’t let them leave the dining table to go to the bathroom.
After a while, the shame of sitting at the dining table, soiling themselves in front of each other, resulted in such extreme Anorexia/Agoraphobia that they all starved to death in bed rather than go anywhere near either the kitchen, the dining table or each other — except for the one who died of fright after encountering the first ghost.
I felt a bit ashamed of myself after that and determined to treat the others better.
I got bored though.
Investigating a bit, I discovered that one way to make money was to have a sim die on a property from which it couldn’t leave.
So I came up with a story explaining why so many new sims kept moving in and then dying in this house …
It was a boarding house run by a woman whose estranged husband, fully cogniscent of the fact that she kept murdering them for their money (by building a moat around the house after they moved in, so that they couldn’t leave), kept sending newcomers to town there, because, even though they were estranged and living separately, they had a twisted Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolfe sort of relationship.
As I said, I eventually had an epiphany and stopped wasting my life but, for a while, it was exhilarating … in a dirty, sordid, spiritually onanistic-masochistic sort of way
Sim Tower:
You could name up to six (possibly eight, I forget now) special ‘characters.’
I was amazed at how often I’d find the Office Bicycle in the same bar or restaurant as the the Philanderer from another office altogether … or the Jailbait from one apartment in the same ice cream parlour as the Pederast from another.
The sickest combo though was the two cleaning staff: Mrs Jones … and her daughter, Miss Jones — that’s right, born into a life of poverty, she was going to progress no further than her downtrodden mother … a life of soul-destroying pittance-wage slavery awaited her too.
Wolfenstein:
When they go down clutching their throat whilst blood spurts through their fingers.
Seeing them hop around on one leg after you’ve shot the other one off (there are extra laughs to be had by shooting one of their other limbs off as they do so — not easy!).
And then, of course, there’s Naughty Bear.
If it weren’t for the fact that it’s on record as having been written by someone else, I’d suspect Aura of having had a hand in its creation — it’s certainly twisted/off-kilter enough.
Can you guess which of the finishing moves is my favourite?
(If anyone can, it’ll be John Tinney — it’s a British kinda thing).
Anyway, I’ll probably add to this list as I remember more of them, but that’s enough revelation of my twisted psyche for now, I think — I don’t want to end up on a list of ‘individuals to watch’.
