The saying “the rainbow comes only after the rain” is often true in life. You’ve heard your parents lament about it. You’ve seen the TV serials (local productions, anyway) dramatise the concept. You can smell it right off Jacky Chan’s conditioned body. You can feel it whenever a new project is entrusted unto you, and you can taste it if you follow through.
Then again, half of you reading this out there are hardcore gamers… no, wait, not just hardcore gamers - you are the cream of the elitist crop. You know that it’s true when you’ve spent days and months to unlock the extra hard modes in Sonic Heroes and Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando; when you have more than 1000 kills in Rainbow Six 3 online; 120 shines in Mario Sunshine; 255 every single stat in any Final Fantasy game; or when you dreamt about a uniquely unbeatable strategy for Warcraft III, and wake up from it just to apply the tactic.
The point I am driving here is that, as the convention follows, elite hardcore gamers have NO LIFE whatsoever. Now, before you refute and say ‘OMG! KIRBYSIM 5uXX0r5!’ while loading up your M16A2s to lock onto my puny head the next time I log onto Rainbow Six 3 on Xbox Live, hear me say ‘I’m one of you too.’ That’s right. In fact, this whole blog entry here is all about the egoistical ME. Those of you who hold the notion that KIRBYSIM, being the good-natured and kind-hearted gentleman he is, would one day dedicate a whole blog entry to your-insidious-selves can go DREAM. HAR HAR HAR. Not happy? Then get your hands dirty, and splat them in my face.
But I digress. Now that I’ve established that I’m a no-life, let me continue to report on my observation that the concept of having to roam the seven seas in order to finally locate that one piece of valuable treasure is true even for me. In other words, the precious fruits of gaming entertainment only come after much slogging. All you MMORPG players (yes, all 2 589 032 of you) should know. But, like I said, this entry is not about you, but ME. ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY! MUAHAHAHAHAHAA.. *chokes* cough! Cough! COUGH!
Ahem.
If you’ve read my previous blog entry here, you’ll know that I recently tried to indulge in a little Rainbow Six 3 online ass-shooting. You’d also know that I have been unsuccessful, and am quite sore that I had to sit and wait for 3 and a half hours before being able to declare that I’m multiplayer-ready. The three full bowls of garden pasta I made (hmm.. my nose just grew longer..) did help to sooth that sore, but it was not good enough to compensate me for what was to come:
I spent 2 whole days slogging in Rainbow Six 3 in an attempt to understand why the game was so highly rated by major game review publications everywhere. “This game SUCKS,” ricochet umpteen times in my head, because I never could appreciate the beauty of getting killed before I can even shoot, much less kill someone.
Or at least, it appeared so initially.
Eventually I learnt to proceed with extreme caution. I learnt to abuse leaning. I learnt to scope. I learnt to work with my squad. I accepted the game as what it was - parallel yet different from my past FPS experiences: Counter-Strike, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Halo, XIII.
And I had fun. Which explains why I had dedicated all my free time to Rainbow Six 3 for the past few days.
That in turn triggered an active cell, and eventually this whole blog entry, embedded somewhere in my visual pattern-recognising head: why did I think that this game sucks in the first place?
I sat down like a Zen monk, and thought for a bit.
“Come to think of it,” I continued, “I love Halo and Return to Castle Wolfenstein as well. But it wasn’t love at first sight. I faintly remember coming to a consensus with my casual-gaming buddies that Halo was over-rated. I also remember how I put Return to Castle Wolfenstein back into its Xbox casing 10 minutes after I first played it, because it gave me some serious motion sickness.”
As it turns out, I’d love nothing more than to take on polytechnic-mate-to-be and champion of the Halo World Cyber Games 2003 Singapore qualifiers Brendam Koh in a Halo match right now. The fact that he has thrashed me 25 to 5 many a times does not prevent me from dreaming of the day I’ll beat him consistently in a number of consecutive matches.
But that’s another story for another day.
To conclude, just like how you’d have to go to a JC, then a programming course at a university, and eventually become a lecturer at NUS before you can get selected by the EDB for an internship over at Sega Japan (if only so that you can own people in the ttttokyo Unreal Tournament 2004 server), gamers everywhere have to spend a ton of time reading the instruction manual, learning the controls and game physics, getting their butts kicked, and gathering tips from a plethora of game guides before they can get down to the motherload. That’s how videogames are.
… …
And then there are Nintendo games. :)
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Did’ja know.. that my Xbox Live GamerTag is ‘KIRBYSIM’? Add me if you’re looking to be stepped on by a Rainbow Six operative, shrouded by a pink evil aura, after getting fragged with a frag grenade.
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