A moody instrumental dedicated to those sneaky immersive sims like Thief and Dishonored. Man, I would probably give one of my organs for a new Deus Ex, Thief, or Dishonored, provided that some of the original devs were involved. I had a lot of fun with this song. I wrote it piece by piece, starting with the initial guitar riff and adding on from that.
Who wants to get fragged? Shit, I'm so old I remember the days of being called a haxor. The internet was a beautiful thing back in 1999. You had to be either a kid who knew what was up or an actual nerd to "surf" the world wide web. Nowadays the internet just depresses us and makes us stupid. I guess Something Awful predicted the future with its motto.
FPS 1999 is a drop D riff-rocker inspired by Unreal Tournament's kick ass soundtrack which is probably my favorite video game soundtrack of all time. If you weren't riffing in drop D tuning, then you weren't a real alternative metal band back in the day.
The first in an instrumental collection, Massive Space Effect is a techno-ambient ode to space operas and the vastness of the universe as represented in electronic entertainment. I came up with the piano chords today on a whim and then put together this ramshackle piece in about an hour. It's basically in D Dorian with the inclusion of a flattened fifth and then a key change to C major.
Uhhhgggg. Like who wants to do anything, right? I don't want to go outside. Outside, there are Trumpers, the patriarchy, war crimes, and sunlight. The world is irrevocably fucked, so why even care? Inside, I have all the things that I need.
Instead of thinking or doing things, I'd prefer to mindlessly scroll on my phone. Hit up Instagram, Tik-tok, Reddit, and a bunch of shit I don't even know what it's called. They call them Reels because they flash past your eyes and displace reality. They paint a beak, dystopian picture that weighs on my heart like a brick of lead. The algorithm provides and I shall feed from what I am served.
I have spent five-thousand hours of my life this past year playing video games. I have sat so long in this chair that on three occasions I have had to go to the hospital for my painful, impacted bowels. I paid forty dollars for this game a year ago, but I swear to god if they change a fucking thing to my displeasure this next update, I might have to kill something. The developers owe me because this game is my life. The progression and sense of adventure that living might have afforded me had I any ambition have been replaced by my character's level in the virtual world. Does it make sense to live like this? Despite all of my rage, am I, as Billy Corgan said, just a rat in a cage? Billy had enough perspective to know he was a fucking rat. I don't because loserdom has reached the mainstream. Some studies estimate that 60 percent of young men aren't dating. Why date when you can just jerk off and then play video games for hours?
Why try when you might fail?
There used to be cultural pressure that prevented the mass adoption of loserdom. When I was a kid, you didn't talk about video games all the time, because that's what nerds did. When I was in college, you went to parties even if you were an awkward dude, because how else were you going to meet someone? I might have only played beer pong once or twice, but by god, I played it and I lingered in the corners, trying to muster enough courage to speak to that cute girl in the hat across the room. Back in the past, if I wanted to go home and jerk off, I'd have to risk giving my computer the virtual equivalent of a thousand STDs. Nowadays, I can give an internet prostitute my credit card number and she'll suck on her toes or lick her armpits or indulge whatever weird fetish I've latched onto because my brain and libido have been mutated by the unreal volume of internet porn I've consumed over the last decade. Everyone does it! There's no shame when everyone is a big, fat loser.
I've got friends still, somehow. Every once in a while they'll ask me to do something. Usually I'll ghost them, because I prefer to stew in my depression, nursing my impacted bowels, rather than actually leave the house and do something. I got friends in the video game. Sure, I'll never meet them, but we have shared experiences, hours spent together killing aliens. The rat doesn't want to leave the cage, alright? He's been conditioned to pull the lever and get that sweet, sweet dopamine even if he's miserable inside. All the virtual stimulation in the world won't replace hanging out with your flesh and blood friends. All the limp masturbation doesn't replace actual sex with a real person. Five-thousand hours in a video game doesn't make a life.
Ehhh, fuck it. I can't get up. I'm old and fat and worn out, even if I'm only forty. Maybe tomorrow. Probably not, though.
Turning Forty
It's hot outside and I stink
The fetid odor of ammonia
Rising from beneath my shirt
To assault my nostrils.
Why does my chest hurt?
Why are my muscles always sore?
Truly, I am a physical marvel at my age
At this time
In this place.
So why do I feel like shit?
Why has a deep malaise settled in
Like fog seeping over the Ohio?
This mild discontent
Sours my birthday
And makes me think
Of death and time
And all the terrible malefactors
Presiding over the land of the free.
I just want to forget about news
The stressors of life
My job and all my sundry duties
Is that so much to ask?
Turns out, it is.
Welcome, friend, to adulthood.
You're middle-aged, bitch.
Most of us didn't make it this far.
Be thankful what you have.
A dark murder ballad that I wrote a week or two ago on the piano, just hammering away on that D while slowing doing a Dorian walk up. I do like the bridge part a lot. It's a D minor to a C to a B diminished to a little blues riff involving a C-G# dyad. The chorus has a chromatic walk down that reminds me of 70's music. Although this sounds nothing like them, I have been listening to Steely Dan.
Slay The Spire: Another classic that I've only just recently gotten around to, Slay The Spire is a roguelike deck-builder, a mashup of genres that I've never been particularly interested in; however, I purchased the game for my son and checked it out after he abandoned it, and man, this shit is addictive. With four different characters, a ton of randomized relic and card drops, and a map that's never exactly the same, Slay The Spire has all the ingredients of a time vampire. It's a game about crafting strategies and adjusting on the fly, and you'll always find the time for another run. Really, I almost don't recommend it, because you'll have trouble stopping yourself from playing it.
Hades: Just like Slay The Spire, Hades has the roguelike formula down pat, although it actually makes demands of your reflexes unlike the aforementioned deck-builder. Where Hades really shines is its phenomenal art design and compelling cast of characters taken from Greek mythology. It's freaking hard, though, just like Slay the Spire. Also, I'm not quite in love with its gameplay, for unless you get the right Boons (powerups given by the Gods) you'll often find your hits underpowered. Still a classic worth twenty or one-hundred hours of your time.
Returnal: It looks great, with an aesthetic that borrows from H.R. Giger, but man, I can't quite get into Returnal after about ten hours. It's another roguelike, which is probably the issue. After spending so many hours dying in Slay the Spire and Hades, bashing my controller against the floor in Returnal is less desirable than it might be otherwise. It's a bullet-hell title, so dodging is more important than aiming, but I haven't even escaped from the first biome and there are apparently five in total, so maybe Returnal just demands more of my reflexes than I'm capable of giving at the moment.
Arkham Knight: The closing title of Rocksteady's Arkham trilogy, Arkham Knight was a title I grabbed off the Epic Games store a couple years ago when they were giving away free games like candy. It's amazing how well Arkham Knight's graphics hold up--if you updated the textures and patched in DLAA, you'd think it was a modern game and not 2015 title. The batmobile is the big gameplay addition, and it is admittedly pretty cool and fun to handle, even if some of those Riddler challenges demand a little too much of the physics system. Insomniac refined what Rocksteady did--Spider-man's combat system is a little more intuitive and he certainly gets around better than Batman and his wings--but they basically copied the whole design of their Spider-man games from Rocksteady's series. My only real complaint is that Arkham Knight is weighed down with countless mini-games and side quests that distract from its narrative. I'm sticking to the story, which is pretty good. Batman's hallucinating the Joker and might be actually turning into him due to some sort of blood disease, and he's got to find Scarecrow before he kills Barbara Gordon... well, you don't play these for the story, right? You feel like the Batman, and who doesn't want to pummel some jabronis into submission with your bat fists?
A moody instrumental dedicated to those sneaky immersive sims like Thief and Dishonored. Man, I would probably give one of my organs for a...
