Let's back up for a minute...

Okay!

Here is what I've been up to: Work work work work work work work. I don't think I've played a game in months. It makes me sad.

Here's what Grandma has been up to: NCAA Football 08', Metal Gear Solid 4, F.E.A.R., Infinite Undiscovery, Fable II, Resistance 2, and now Fallout 3.

She just started Fallout 3 and Resistance 2, so there isn't much to say yet. But I can give you a quick rundown of what life has been like recently.

After she had her EA fun with the commercial thing, she decided to focus more time on sports games. She has said in countless interviews "I don't play sports games because I fucking suck at them." She wanted to change that a bit. She dived right in to NCAA Football '08. Mainly because '09 wasn't out yet and she saw a bit of the new Madden when she was in Orlando and thought it looked pretty good.

To hear the EA guys explain it, the new Madden would be perfect for her. The 'old' EA sports games were intimidating with complication and learning curves that made a lot of gamers squirm. Anticipating the new game, she bought an old one from the bargain bin at Wal-Mart to see what the hell they were talking about.

It turns out that EA is filled with silver-tongued demons who can only lie.

NCAA '08 was difficult for Grandma. For a day or two. Then it got so ridiculously fucking easy she played it for a week solid out of spite.

Being a Buckeye gal, she chose Ohio State as her favorite team. Her very first matchup after a dozen or so tutorials was Michigan State. A bitter rival only seemed appropriate for her first slaughter. In the RPG mentality of things, you first have to be destroyed by an all powerful evil force so you can truly appreciate the hours and hours of life wasted by leveling up and learning the ropes.

Applied to sports games, it looks like this:

Day 1
"Goddammit, I can't kick the fucking ball straight!"

"SHIT! Interception."

"FUCK!! INTERCEPTION!"

"NOOOOOOO!!!! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU THROWING THE GODDAMN BALL TO! This SUCKS!"

"COCKSUCKER!"
-"What?"
"I can't believe I did that."
-"Did what?"
"I RAN THE WRONG. FUCKING. WAY."
-"Well that's embarrassing."
"Motherfucking SAFETY. God DAMN."

Final Score: Ohio State 0 - Michigan 51

Day 2
"YAY! I SCORED A TOUCHDOWN! ALRIGHT! WOOOOO!!!! You fucking SUCK, Michigan!"

"YAAAAAAAY!!! I SCORED AGAIN!"

"ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! KEEP IT GOING!"
-"What quarter is it?"
"Still the first, I think."
-"Did you change the difficulty?
"No. I think I just figured out what the hell these different plays mean."
-"Ah. You want to bump up the difficulty?"
"NO!"

Final Score: Ohio State 63 - Michigan 6

Day 3
"Hey! I.. scored again! Alright!"

".....Okay, this is getting ridiculous."

"How high will they allow the score to go before they just end it?"
-"I don't think there is a limit. I don't know, why?"
"Because I have like.. 105 points."
-"What quarter is it?"
"Third."
-"This announcer needs to say some new shit, he's annoying."

"Tim. Tim, how do you make it harder?"

Final Score: Ohio State 112 - Michigan 0

Day 4
"I'm just picking random plays now. I'm TRYING to f*ck up. I even turned up the Human chance or error percentage and turned down the A.I. error to the point where they're fucking.. GODS or something. What's a Screen Pass? I don't even know, but it worked."

"This is boring. What the hell is this?"
-"Maybe if you played Dynasty Mode it would be harder. You could start playing with Kent State or something."
"Alright."
-"More of a challenge."

5 days later...
"Nope."
-"Nope what?"
"It wasn't harder. I took Kent State to a BCS Championship. I didn't even think that was possible."
-"It's not."
"Apparently it is."

"I don't get what people see in this."

And so ended Grandma's brief feeling of euphoric joy for beating Michigan. It just isn't any fun when it's easy.

The first time she scored a touchdown she was screaming like Mexico had just won the World Cup. She was so excited she missed kicking the extra point.

Then, slowly, every touchdown after that was a little bit more subdued than the last. Eventually it was just silence, and then frustration. Frustration because now she would have the boring task of playing defense until the other team fucked up enough to give her the ball.

She felt cheated.


Being broke and hungry for something new, she rented Metal Gear Solid 4.

Metal Gear, PS3 graphics, playing an old bad-ass.. it seemed like a good idea.

It was fun for me, anyway.

I didn't get to play the game, but as I sat on the computer just feet away from her journey as Solid Snake played at full-volume, it was great to hear that all too familiar "HOLY-SHIT-SOMEONE-SAW-YOU-AND-NOW-YOU-ARE-FUCKED!" alert sound again, followed by a torrent of Grandma's usual verbal challenges that said to the game "No, I do not believe he saw me, my good sir, for as you can see I was crouching under this futuristic camo thingy and was invisible; thusly I believe there must be some mistake."

Or if you prefer:

"GOD DAMMIT! HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO HIDE WHEN THEY STEP ON YOUR FACE?!"

I'd have more to say on MGS4 but to tell the truth, she took it back to Hollywood Video before she finished it. I did get some video of her trying to explain the plot to me, though. Although I think that might be unfair to Grandma. I watched her play it for hours and I still have no idea what the hell it was about.

I'll post it as soon as I get my sound card working again :)


F.E.A.R.!

I don't know what it stands for and neither do you. A bunch of you guys online recommended it to Grandma so she went out and bought herself a copy.

She found it to be a pretty solid manifestation of what Doom 3 or The Darkness could have been. Sadako Samara Mayu Some fucked up little evil girl is killing some dudes; you got to stop her ass. As far as FPS games go, it wasn't her favorite but she played it to death. I wasn't with her most of the time she played the thing, but I was with her at the end.

She had tried fighting a boss or... something for hours to no avail. It would, in her words, "kill you with a single touch. I don't know what the fuck."

She printed off a couple pages of GameFAQs and went back to work. After awhile, she killed the thing, stared at the screen for awhile as the subwoofer shook the room and then..

..nothing.

"That was it? It's over.. I think. Yup. That's the end of the game. Huh."

Not exactly the most glowing reaction she's ever had to a game but it'll do.

From hearing her talk about it, it's the FPS equivalent to King of the Hill. Not exactly the best thing on television but at least it's not painful to watch.


Infinite Undiscovery!

Grandma loved it. That's not surprising seeing Grandma digs all things Square. She even said herself it was more or less a FFXII clone. Me? I hated it. I've never played it, but I hate it. Have you played it? Then you know why I hate it. Here's why:

"CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!"
"CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!"
"SOMEONE! PLEASE TREAT THEM!"
"CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!"
"CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!"
"SOMEONE! PLEASE TREAT THEM!"
"CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!"

The syncopation of this audio (heard during every SINGLE FUCKING BATTLE) is right up there with those annoying goddamn Saved By Zero Toyota ads-- it gets stuck in your head all day.

When you're at the gas station, waiting in line to pay.
CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!
When you're at work, trying to concentrate.
CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!
When you're driving home.
SOMEONE! PLEASE TREAT THEM!
When you're eating dinner.
CAN YOU TREAT THEM?!
When you're trying to sleep.
HELP THE INJURED!
When you're stabbing yourself in the temple with a steak knife.
SOMEONE! PLEASE TREAT THEM!

Grandma didn't give a shit, she's hard of hearing. But when you hear something that sounds like "INNUENDO DIVE!!" for the one millionth time and you STILL have no idea what that could mean, it's hardly a milestone that can be celebrated without a call to the suicide hotline.

God DAMN.

But she liked it! She thought the storyline was kind of cliche, but it's a Square game so she can forgive. She would talk about how it was sort of immature and how awkward it was constantly having little kids in one's party, a strange Japanese sort of necessity in RPGs, but that was before she played Fable II.

And she's got a hell of a lot to say about Fable II. So that gets its own post next week.

See you then!

Game on!

/SOMEONE! PLEASE TREAT THEM!