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OTOH Experiment
Everyone knows the importance of first impressions, and how they can color every experience thereafter. The situation is a bit more dire when it comes to blogging (or at least it feels that way), because once we nail something down with words, it not only helps cement the first impressions in our own minds, but it also becomes baggage that gets checked any time we say something contrary in the future. You would not see Wolfshead or Syncaine posting about how much they enjoy Mists of Pandaria, for example, even if they were genuinely impressed; so much of their identity and “e-cred” is wrapped up in historical posts about hating WoW that everyone would assume they are trolling at best, or hypocritical at worse.
I was thinking about all that this weekend, as I mused over the sort of feedback and counter-arguments I have been getting about my Guild Wars 2 posts. Do they have a point? Am I letting my first impressions and foreknowledge about the “endgame” color my moment-to-moment enjoyment? Am I not talking about the fun/interesting things because I subconsciously fear “contradicting” myself?
To answer these questions, I decided to try an experiment I am calling: On The Other Hand. The idea is to carve out a space between playing Devil’s Advocate and cleaning the slate as much as possible for a second impression. The experiment does not involve me being relentlessly positive or pretending to like things I do not – it merely gives me mental room to acknowledge that I may have been unfair in the past.
I’m wrapping this all up in a fancy “experiment” instead of just coming out and admitting possible wrongs, because… well, it is easier. Hey, I never pretended to be a humble guy.
In any case, the first night of the experiment actually happened on Saturday when I strolled into a zone I had never been to before; took some screenshots, jotted down some notes. Since I spent all day Sunday playing FTL (ominous foreshadowing?) I am going to try and run the experiment for another day or two. The end result may be in one big post, or several smaller ones. I especially want to try to get back into a third dungeon.
So look forward to that, or dread it, as is your predilection.
In An Age 
Decemberiment
Dec 1
Posted by Azuriel
Trying an experiment for December: just post stuff as I go.
Finished a second session of 1000xRESIST. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken so many screenshots. Looks like… 58 total, so far. Not really because of the visuals, although those are good, but rather the sometimes hilarious, sometime brutal dialogue.
And then you get into stuff like this.
That’s not really brutal, but most of what I’ve taken have spoilers so, yeah.
The experience has been great overall, although it is absolutely a walking-simulator style game. You walk around, talk to people, get pulled into crazy sequences, do some very light puzzle work with time skipping, and, uh, fly around by shooting at glowy purple things? It’s kinda weird.
The other thing I wanted to briefly talk about here is that I really, really enjoy the general weirdness of the made-up words/phrases it has. “Hekki ALLMO,” “Sphere to Square,” “Six to One,” “Hair to Hair,” and so on. A lot of games and/or media stick in random crap into dialog to enhance the “realness” of the fictional world, but many times it feels forced or otherwise a token effort. Think of all those fantasy games where people exclaim “By the [#gods]!” and basically nothing else. A Handmaid’s Tale did a fantastic job with its phrases; Game of Thrones had a lot of phrases, but, eh, sometimes felt more (ironically) rote than meaningful. 1000xRESIST lands much closer to A Handmaid’s Tale. Maybe it’s the repetition or something like the smaller scale of interaction.
Or maybe it’s just fucking catchy and evocative. “Hair to hair” is nonsense, but you could make sense out of it. Standing back-to-back? Being linked genetically? Regardless, it’s cool.
Posted in Commentary, Impressions
2 Comments
Tags: 1000xRESIST, Experiment, Hair to Hair, Phrases