Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Why I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Be A Real Gamer

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My husband is currently playing a game called “Civilization 4” on the Xbox. Basically, you play as your choice from a selection of famous rulers (Alexander the Great, Isabella of Spain, Mao Tse Tung, etc.), and then you try to be the first to build up your civilization and take over all of the others.

That in and of itself really isn’t very noteworthy. Neither is the fact that you, as the ruler, are supported by a number of different advisers. Or the fact that the adviser characters are voiced, rather than simply appearing as text conversations on the screen.

However, what is a little bit distracting about this game is the fact that these characters, characters who were voiced by actual actors, actors who auditioned for and were then paid money to perform these roles, SPEAK ENTIRELY IN GIBBERISH.

Here is an actual, phonetic, transcription of some of their helpful advice:

Minister of Trade and Commerce: (as she is advising you on how to allocate all of your resources) “Oh dumb brew. Ah key wayn wee lahm. Hick wahn hoo ee. Fall-uhm, fall-uhm.”

Me: “What the…Are they speaking…?”

My husband: (totally unconcerned as he conquers Spain, France, and Italy.) “They’re speaking gibberish.”

Minister of Culture: (advising you that a neighboring city would like to convert to your culture.) “Oh bah bow lee shaw. Boo ee la. Ba oh boo! Bah dah doo-ew.”

Me (unable to get past the gibberish): “Do you think they hired real people to voice these characters? I mean, how would you brag about being cast in this role? ‘Dude, I just got this part, and nothing I say makes any sense at all!’ ”

My husband: (unable to respond as he is currently vanquishing Queen Elizabeth I, Mao Tse Tung, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander the Great.)

Minister of Technology: “Vee zah schtah sahn. Ook vahn ahn schtan!” (And did I mention that he punctuates every one of his statements with jazz hands? And that he ends every encounter with a little growl and sexy teeth snap in your direction? I COULD NOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP IF I TRIED!)

Me: (still unable to get past the gibberish) “I mean, you’d think that if they were just going to have the characters speak nonsense, they would’ve just had a computer generate random syllables.”

My husband: (finishing up work on the seventh wonder of the world, preparing to launch the first space shuttle, and not even pretending to listen to me anymore as he achieves total financial, cultural, and domination victories over all other civilizations of this, and any other world.)

And that, my friends, is what separates the true gamers of the world from the mere pretenders like me.

Ambrosia

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Lately my husband has been playing the new video game “Fallout 3”, which takes place in a post-nuclear war world, a war which your character has survived by living underground in a vault. Eventually you escape your vault, come up to the surface, and must undertake various missions assigned to you by different groups of survivors.

As you travel you can acquire various random items that may assist you in carrying out your missions, like food, medicine, and weapons. One such item featured in this game is something called “Nuka-Cola”, which of course warmed the cockles of my soda-loving heart.

“It’s so nice to see that cockroaches are not the only things that survive nuclear war,” I remarked to my husband during a recent gaming session.

“Yes, it’s nice to see that even here, someone is still making soda,” he agreed.

“Because there’s really not much that a Coke can’t fix,” I said, at the exact moment my husband was attacked by a roving gang of fire-breathing ants the size of small houses, who were, ironically, impervious to the powers of soda.

“It’s like French fries,” I said, warming to my subject. “Because you know,” I said, struck with the gravity of the revelation I was about to reveal, “French fries are God’s medicine.”

The Wonderful World Of Gaming

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“I bought 2 new games. They’re both by the same people who did ‘Mass Effect’.”

“The one where you were the chief?”

“No, the one where I was the captain of a ship.”

(Blank look)

“The one with all the sex.”

“Ah, that one.”

“And I don’t know what’s in these games, but the clerk made me show him my ID when I was checking out.”

“Wow-what does it say?”

“Hm, only blood, gore, and violence. But no sex.”

“Oh well, you can’t have everything.”

(The opening title sequence plays out on the TV screen.)

“But apparently it does have titties.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a video game without titties now, would it?”

Why I Love My Husband So Much: Reason 2

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He always sees the good in me.

This weekend we were playing a new video game featuring characters from the X-Men series of comic books. I’m playing as “Storm”, the character who can harness the power of weather.

I’m a bit directionally challenged , so I told him, “It’s a good thing you’re the one in charge of getting us around, because to me it looks like we’ve come back to this same exact room about 27 times.”

“That’s OK, baby,” he replied. “Some of us can read maps, and some of us have lightning.”

This Is Your Brain On Videogames

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Me: I think the robots in this game are a little anachronistic.

(Yes, I was trying to hold to a uniform standard a video game whose only consistency lies in the constant featuring of scantily-clad, anatomically-impossibly-large bosomed females.)

My husband: I don’t think they’re robots, so much as animated suits of armor.

Me: Scarily, that actually makes sense.

Overheard

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Yesterday we once again played host to The Gamers,and dedicated as I am to bringing the world entertaining stories from my everyday life, I decided to listen to what they said during game play and take notes for my blog.

So today I present to you, “The Best Things I Heard This Weekend: The Gamers Edition”.

1. Gamer 1:I just got donkey punched by the abominable snowman.
Gamer 2: That’s not the abominable snowman. That’s the abominable WTF?!

2. Gamer 2: Say no to ice-wielding zombies.
Gamer 3: Say no to zombies, period.

3. Gamer 1: OK, take the bone-studded choker.
Gamer 3: Yes, pick up the boner.

4. Who else needs to be slayed?

5. (Earlier in the evening someone had expressed their belief that having sex steals your soul. Later during game play someone’s character killed a wild boar and we all watched as the boar’s soul left its body.)
Gamer 1: Hey, that pig had a soul.
Gamer 2: I guess it didn’t have sex today.
Gamer 3: Or else it was a virgin.

Things That Make You Say, “What?!: Video Games

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This weekend my husband bought the video game “Prince of Persia: Two Thrones”. I was in the living room when he played it for the first time, because I like to watch the opening sequence of all his new games to see if it has a story I’ll be interested in following.

As usual, the first thing he did was to scroll through the different screens where he could set his gaming preferences, and when the “Display” screen popped up I saw this:

Tutorials-yeah, that makes sense

Progressive Scan-sure, that’s some technical stuff

Blood

Screen Adjust-more technical stuff

Wait-what? BLOOD?! Since when is that a technical issue?

The Better Part Of Valor

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Knowing that when your husband is nearing the end of the game, “God of War”, and is snarling out phrases like, “What is the point of this?”, and “This is absolutely ridiculous!”, and, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen!!” to you, an avowed non-gamer, as he is trying to climb up the Rotating Pole Of Spiked Death, that he is not the only one facing a trap in that moment.