Return Policy
I know there are some wicked weapons in WoW, but the fact that Mark chose a board with nails through it is a beacon to his understanding of art and pain. The last time I checked Azeroth did not have tetanus shots.Not that I would know these things. I may have mentioned this before but I’m on a one-year video game sabbatical.
I haven’t laid hands on a controller since we declared ‘08 the year of the truncated snowman and went around the neighborhood blowing off the heads of their snow creations. We only spared one. He had a little snowboy standing next to him.
Despite my break from the virtual fantasy world, I still read video-game news with the hunger of a new born baby bird. I stare at the art work like it was the promised land, a recovering alcoholic wandering under a bright neon sign on a sultry evening, fighting every piece of himself not to swoop through the swinging doors. All the more reason I shouldn’t go anywhere near the stuff. Video games have often left me unsatisfied, with an empty wallet, a blur of days stretching behind me, nothing to show for it but a small blip on a memory card, a possibly imagined smug expression on my character’s profile.
Diablo 3 comes out after my sabbatical has finished (that is, definitely not in the next three months) and I’m sure I will be more than happy to monotonously click buttons only to hear the satisfying crumpling of skeleton soldiers, bone clacking bone, then to press the arrows in the direction of glowing like tonic. And repeat for hours, days, sigh, years.
While I’m certain everyone has their delicious pointlessness, the blight of the machine does not leave you with rock hard calves or blond hairs on your pillow (yes even too much alcohol has its advantages). But how can I not begrudge the riders of the glee train as they ride squealing by? Each car a new adventure: Professor Layton and his magnificent top hat, Sack Boy and his cardboard creations, rhythm sensitive punk pins (I want the world to end with me!), a game with death and space both, and of course, the biggest test of my electronic celibacy, the caboose, a new Dr. Mario. Imagine a woman, dear readers, who’s just experienced a messy break-up with a heartless, straw-haired Chilean. She decides the only thing that can cure what ails her is Mario dressed in labcoat and reflector throwing multi-colored pills at dancing virus devils (honestly, name a disease that won’t cure). When this woman wakes up at two in the morning with the darkness of heartbreak upon her, she wakes her son to help her eliminate these dancing monstrosities, to forget about chilean men in a mesmerizing display of flipping pills. And so the boy is inundated, every night, like some sort of Padawan training to arrange reds with reds, blues with blues, and yellows with horned beasts, to unleash combos that will rain a rainbow of hate down on the opposing player. Yes, ladies (?) and gentlemen, the good doctor flows through my veins. I have never met a soul who can defeat me. If you think you can, speak up now. Meet me on the jarred battlefield come ‘09 and I will make you taste the rainbow.
Anyway, the train rumbles by and all I get are salivating glances, before it disappears into the Wii sunset. I sling my knapsack over my shoulder and head down the empty tracks.
Autumn has come and dragon-like lions roam the streets, biting people’s assorted body parts to take the ache away. Fruits the size of skulls grow out of the volcanic earth. I also hear there’s a new restaurant in town. This should keep me occupied.
-Christian
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