If you’re anything like me, you’ve accidentally become a master at tripping over the finish line.

The home stretch be like that some times

Upon further reflection, the article I posted on the 7th, had a ridiculous irony in being titled “Something Beautiful, But Annihilating, as it ended up being a bit chunky, even after some excessive fat trimming of epic regard, crammed full of so many expensive sounding words, the whole thing ironically felt bankrupt by articles end. When I’m writing these damn things, they always make sense in the moment, but I suppose that is always the difference between the front and back end user experience. Tis’ a shame, really, as there were many insightful points made amidst the exhausting word play. No point in crying over spilled milk or clumsy writing, however, I will just have to reiterate on some of those finer points in the near future. Though, I think for safety’s sake, and in the name of “the pendulum swing” of corrective standard, I will endeavor to make this article more mindfully breezy and conversationally minded, for both of our sakes.

In spite of having a day off, today’s overall quality rated somewhere in the mid to low ‘blah’ range of enjoyable moments, which is never what one wants. I mentioned before that I was still interested in doing high level speedruns in Metal Gear Solid 3 (MGS3), but my dubiousness on whether or not I would be able to keep up a focus on more than one title at a time was well placed, as the task of doing so has been fairly fucking frustrating, in juggling Expedition 33 (E33), MGS3, and finding time to do random runs in The Stanley Parable (TSP) to boot. So with multiple balls dropped in the matter, I pick up my E33 ball and ‘go home’ to square one, as it were.

I won’t lie: I remain a bit shook about the quality of one of my most recent articles, which puts me on slight edge about the approach in nailing today’s write-up, more so in the name of entertaining standard and respect of your time dear reader. I say this of course in the notion that I am keeping you in mind, and doing my damnedest on your behalf. I suppose it’s human nature to focus on the negative, even if it’s outweighed by the positive ten to one, which is infinitely irritating, as the inverse of this situation is not true in keeping a consistent format of emotional standard in check. To clarify about that last statement; it’s not like after the ten articles before yesterday’s, which I considered all of quality regard, led me to give myself a Pash on the back while saying “good job my dude, some excellent writing“, and then felt spurred on to do even better work. These sad ironies rule the everyday too often, and we are all left to suffer as fools because of them.

I’ve remained largely in the dark about E33, in most ways, as I usually avoid consuming too much media about a title until I have a frame of reference for it, at the very least. This is in fact, more so to keep an unsullied viewpoint of the title, going into the experience with a clean slate, no previous biases already engraved in my brain by the time I begin. This obviously becomes harder to do and less true over time, as the longer I wait to start playing a bigger game, the more I end up learning about the experience, through the ridiculous reality of cultural osmosis, absorbing the franchises energy incidentally and through proximity, about large fictional events that happen around me, but without me; this is largely how I learned about Game of Thrones, and I find myself better off for it, with all things considered, especially n regards to how things ended up by shows end.

I am interested to see why exactly so many people made E33 their game of the year, as I am not usually so in lockstep with the masses en large about matters in the gaming realm. Don’t get me wrong, at about 10 hours in, I have simultaneously seen and elaborated on many points of interest, in just how much the game gets right, from having that old school Final Fantasy drip, to rocking some well needed quality of life rizz, in making the RPG elements more fleek, E33 is quite a beautiful bae to be bedazzled by. This is what intrigues me so, however, cause what I find delightful about the game, would surely have to intersect with what so many others see about it too yeah? Still, one of my points of interest is the extra challenge of treating the game like a lowkey rhythm action game, in how both the QTE flourishes on the attacks work, as well as pulling off that almighty perfect parry, in completely shaming the enemy. Most gamers I know, and certainly the average RPG lover, are not usually the highly “aggressive” or ambitious kind of high performance lot to want to excessively engage in such high performance maneuvering, so the idea that these would contribute to the game of the year status leaves me with one eyebrow firmly raised on the matter.

To that point, and ironically, I find that many times, what people like about some games, has little to do with their interactive element whatsoever, with many just citing elements like graphics, story, characters etc as being the standout qualities that make the game so thoroughly celebrated. Which, far be it from me to dictate how people enjoy their media, but one would just be led to think that an experience within the medium lauded for its interactivity, would see others you know, celebrate that very same interactivity for what makes a particular game so thrilling, and not just narrative and writing. This is one of the reasons I feel as if MGS ended up reaching such a wider audience than most other stealth games did in their niche appeal, cause amidst the aggravating sense of struggling with the stealth gameplay, you had great characters swapping authentic and immersive levels of real depth of background, as the insane plot unfolded in a number of totally off the rails ways. E33 seems ripe for some insanity, as any game that has its introductory steeped in apocalyptic standard, has already normalized the absurd, and now has to confront quite the self-issued challenge, in successfully uping the ante as time goes on.

I have no doubts that being the RPG that it is, E33 will take me some time yet to see the finale, and it may yet be a burden to bear, in finding so many ways to write about the title compellingly, without losing my introspective shine or deconstructive luster, but much in the same way I’ve commented on the nature of the arduous rides I do on my bike; I don’t write because it’s easy, so here’s looking towards to the challenge that lies ahead.

-Pashford