Troglodytes' gorilla

It's 1991.  Ayatollah Khomeini is in the wriggling throws of death. The Soviet Union has collapsed upon itself like a fusty and mouldering estate housing a desiccated clan of Havishams. I bear witness to the precipice of history itself, revolving around me, spokes akimbo and threatening to drag me feet first into the ambivalent chasm of passing time. Too bad I'm wearing velcro shoes and bumbling with otiose fingers at a keyboard that weighs more than I do. 

I'm playing the first video game I've ever played.  On a screen in front of me, two QBasic gorillas hurl explosive bananas in a vain attempt to destroy one another. It's the polar opposite of My Dinner With Andre and I love it. There's two commands to enter: the velocity of your banana, and the angle you fling it, underarmed and lustily, primeval as the newly risen sun. In a surrealistic turn, you can control the gravity of your playing field. You can destroy the buildings upon which you revel at your opponent. You can destroy the sun. With a banana. You are ruination reborn. 

In the same year that the SNES was released, and that legions of children would be battle-toading and riding coloured dinosaurs, I stared at a DOS prompt and embraced a kafkaesque vision of the earth's future: one riddled with gorillas, bent on destruction. I think it's an understatement to say that this game would forever shape how I viewed gorillas, and more importantly, bananas.

Play it here.

Nuclear Winter

So I say to Mike I says "what's the story with this Metro 2033 game?"

And so he lends it to me.

Oh, son. This game is like a first person shooter for the OCD ultrarealist with no connection to realism.

But it is fun. Give me a couple more days with it and I'll put together something a little more developed.

Here's a quick Coles' notes version.

The game, based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel of the same name, is set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow. The player guides young protagonist Artyom through this bildungsroman into the Metro tunnels that snake below the city's bombed-out streets to reach new Metro stations. Or... towns. Well, people live in them? So, maybe it's just like real-life today Russia? But maybe nicer.

Anyways, stealth's a big part of the game. Sneak around, shoot out lights, don't step on those broken plates (for real! so modern!) or those nazis might hear you. The weapons have a fun, junkyard feel to them. Currently, I'm enjoying the air-rifle that you can overpump to the point that it will put a ball-bearing through a monster's chest cavity.

The game also loads up the controller enough options to have almost every possible button combination mapped out. Seriously, there is a command to do almost everything. But, it's fun and adds to the atmosphere that not only do you have a flashlight and gasmask, but you have to wind up a dynamo to power your light and conserve filters for your mask. It's currently my favourite hobo-simulator on 360.

Jokes aside, I'm enjoying Metro 2033 a lot. The game is atmospheric, scary where it needs to be, competent at telling an interesting narrative, and well-designed enough to keep you playing.

Don't play it if you want anything other than a huge downer, though. It's full of Russians who are all more depressing and gloomy than the real thing.

Major bummers.


Expect a full write-up later this week.

#Metro2033 #GloomyRussians #hobosimulator