Note to self: Write massive diatribe.

Tenative title: How To Call Tech Support.

Content: How To Know When to Shoot Yourself in the Face for Being a Moronic Fucktard.

Man.

I get irritable when I fast.

Also. Checked my e-mail for the first time in 15 days.

1663 new messages.

Fuck you, internet.

Lately, it seems that modern video games impress me less and less.

I'll save the "What's become of our arcades!?" rant for a later date, and focus on the console titles for the moment.

Basically, it seems to me that a lot of new titles lack a certain magic that older (pre 2000) titles used to have. It wasn't the 'classic' gaming thing, where you could pick it up and play, and the objective was to eat all the dots. It wasn't the idea that the score was the objective.

I'm not talking about things that old. But I look at well made games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I've got a handful of flaws I can point out about that game, most of which could actually be considered to be my own fault, since they involve knowing where to go and what to get there. Anyway. Castlevania: SotN is a fantastic game that's relatively straight-forward. You walk, you jump, you hit things with your stabbiter, and so on. But then it builds on that. You can get a whole bunch of nifty items. You can get dozens of different weapons. You can find all these secrets.

SotN is a game with a lot of things to find, and is very rewarding to explore. Even if you never figure out the magic spells. But then you look at the PS2 Castlevania with such a forgettable name I can't even remember what it was.

I don't remember much about it except that it was very very uninteresting. Also, I was paid 5 dollars to take it. No, seriously. EB was running a promotion that gave you 5$ extra on each game you traded in if you bought one of their five 'hot new releases'. I had enough games to trade in that the extra 5$ per game gave me 5 extra dollars after picking up the new Castlevania. Wouldn't have picked it up otherwise, and when I finally got around to opening it (some months later) I promptly traded it in for cash value at the EB again (netting a cool 13$, which shows you how much the game depreciated in value over the course of about three months).

It seems to me that a big deal is made about innovation in gaming. But there's a whole lot that's either TOO innovative, and just so complicated/clunky it's not even worth it, or so non-innovative you have to wonder why.

Too much in gaming these days is rehashing or bad sequels. It's not that sequels are bad. It's just that ... well ... most sequels are bad. And games, as a rule, are far, far, far too trendy.

For example: "Like Devil May Cry with...."

I'm reasonably sure that if a gamer wants to play Devil May Cry, there's nothing keeping him from picking up ... Devil May Cry. And if they want a sequel, I've been told one already exists. This is where the lack of innovation comes in.

Are gaming publishing companies afraid to break new ground for some reason? I could see that. A lot of 'ground-breaking' games are pretty suck-tacular. But many of them are cool, too.

And as far as thinking they're taking the safe road by exploiting a popular genre, they'd probably get much more reward for more risk. From what I can see, knock-offs and clones tend to sell worse than even crappy 'revolutionary' games.

But I guess it costs a lot less to develop games based on something you've seen in action, versus something you make up yourself.

Either way, bottom line, I find myself caring less and less about more and more of the games that are coming out lately. I seem to prefer fewer titles.

I guess that's a good thing, though. Goes easier on my wallet.

So.

I told Sterling I was dropping out of his Mage campaign tonight.

I guess he took it pretty well. Seemed more annoyed with me than anything else.

I suspect he sees me as whiny. Which I probably really am.

But there are issues that are unresolved.

I think, at the core, my main problem is that I really want to be able to have fun and play Mage with my friends. But I can't have fun with the character I've got. I was locked into it early on, though, and Sterling wasn't flexible about changing things around after the fact (which is fair, reasonably), but I don't think he understood my reasons for wanting to change my character.

My character was, and I guess technically still IS just another Walker. Except that Walker's character does everything bigger, better, and with more flair. I can cause agg damage by cutting string! Walker carries a sword of flaming holy energy around at all times!

Jim's character is more demeaning, though. I think that the worst part about Jim's character is that the player could be really helpful to me, a relative newbie to the system. But the player won't because the character wouldn't, and when Jim is DONE playing, he immediately goes to play online, and is really too busy to help me out.

He offered tons of great helpful advice AFTER I got horribly screwed over. But really, my character can cut string and throw rocks. Jim's character has energy pistols.

I just can't stand up to a fanatic (Walker) and Jim's super-awesome- everything-is-coincidental-despite-my-better-efforts Technocrat with a Clarity of 5. I really want my character to be something. But all he can be is Walker's shadow, and when I do something different, Jim will always do it better anyway. So why bother?

I tried to come up with ways to change my character, but those changes, I realized, were essentially trying to ignore everything my character can do, and everything my character IS, just to make a new character. I'd be throwing away literally everything my character is and can do, just for a few cheap tricks, just because if my character can't do SOMETHING (anything!) that everyone else in the party can't already do better anyway.... I don't want to play a game to have a character that's the same as everyone else. That's my real life. I play games to escape.

Being forced into a situation where I'm in the back seat? Fuck that noise -- I could put in overtime at the office for the same experience, except get paid for it.

The GM was unfortunately very unflexible when it came to asking him for help about this -- first off, I wanted rotes, and he never found the time to help me out with that. I eventually came up with some on my own, but what my character can do is really limited, and (as has been established) others can do it better anyway. He did lend me the Verbena clan book, which was nice, and had neat stuff in it. But Walker still out-did me on that front at every turn.

I tried other things to help round my character out ... but all he could offer was information. My character SHOULD have been able to bridge the gap in communication between Major's character and Jim's character, etc., but couldn't. And the reason for that is because Jim knows more about the game than I do, even though my character is supposed to know more than his. And Jim decided that because I knew less about the game than he did, my character obviously did too. Why would I want to keep on playing? Half of the characters in the campaign hate or mock mine anyway.

I have a single merit, actually, which no one else has. Green thumb. My character is good at making things grow. It cost me two freebie points. Jim's character actively builds machines to kill my plants. It costs him zero points to do so.

I give up.

That was my last shot at the entire Mage system, but with this much bad blood, it's not happening. Not now, not ever.

I'm pissed.

I have aquired all 39 episodes of Mysterious Cities of Gold.

This is awesome beyond mortal comprehension.

I loved that show when I was a kid.

I think.

I love it now, though. :)

In other news, I appear to be GMing adequately, but not often enough. >_>;;

Time to take care of that, and adjust the TDAT site.