Getting Away

Now that the year's brightest days are behind us I guess responsibility rests with me alone to provide a sunny outlook for the remaining months of 2013. Summer creates an excellent diversion for a person suffering a particularly weathered state of mind. Autumn and Winter, less so. If you happen to lose your job, or your way, or your hair and the sky is still blue - forget about it. Go roast your skin and have a beer.

I'm aware that many people leave their homes to holiday at this time of year, but I could never claim to be eager to do so. Extended journeys into unknown territories. Boy, I think to myself, that's precisely the experience I have every Saturday morning, sitting in my underpants, video gaming.

I guess in this routine I could consider myself something of a constant tourist; seeing all the sights and yet none of the world. As with Philip K Dick's CAN-D-dependent Mars colonists, I slump cheerfully into a stupor and retreat inside a world that burns brightly and offers me

I can relax in foreign climes if I choose to. I can journey to a place where the weather isn't dictated by the fickleness of air pressure. It's a state of mind, powered by my own imagination and a few hundred watts of electricity.

Thursday night, I load up Crysis for a visit to [crysis island] - An eternally cloudless tropical paradise. A land where night never falls if I keep far enough away from the third or fourth checkpoint. It's quick enough to travel to (approximately ten minutes from the opening credits if I don't dawdle) and the only price you'll pay is the sight of a man I considered a brother in arms melting in front of your eyes.

As I climb to the hilltop a purge the image from my mind and behold the dawn light flooding the bay beneath me.

A word of warning: The occupants of this area are unpleasant and will attack you without the slightest provocation. I'd always recommend you do away with those on land without a single gunshot - bloodstains are unscrubbable here and, unless you want a permanent reminder of the heinous actions that earned you your holiday home, I'd make use of that super-strength to toss every enemy into the sea to wash up on some other shore.

When you're done with this close your eyes and take a moment to breathe. Really breathe. Listen to the waves lapping gently upon the shore. Behold the gentle clucking of the daft birds that might soon be your supper. Do you hear that? It might be the wind, or it might be the Earth sighing .

Ignore the military jets that pass overhead from time to time.

There is no alien menace. There never will be if you remain here - just you and your loved one on the cheapest, most isolated beach holiday either of you have taken.

I call it Biscuit Bay, but you should come up with a meaningful name of your own. The main hut is in a bit of a state - it's filled with plastic bottles, old newspapers and junk - but with a little time and some delicate rearranging it can  be turned it into something rather nice.

Not all virtual excursions are this pleasant. Most of them aren't. In days gone by I made do with CTF 2Fort. The suite at the top of the tower was fine if you were you were able to stand all the noisy goings-on in the flag room below and the Redeemer weapon pick-up offered a handy way to explore the bloodied asteroid without ever leaving your room. Being fragged on occasion was inevitable, but I'd still put it above the Preston Travelodge, even if there was no 24-hour bar available.


Hey.
Hey.
How's things?
Fine.
You're sure?
Yeah. [BR]Sort of. [BR]No.
Still upset about the Sims 3 thing?
No. I'm over that. Marjorie's recovered and the kids are doing well. [BR]Dog's still dead.
I said I was sorry.
I said I was over it.
So what's up?
Well... I was initially pissed off that you weren't going on any of the rides I was building.
Rides?
In Rollercoaster Tycoon. I've been tracking you in my park and you've turned your nose up at literally every single custom coaster I've ever built. Even the weedy ones. You're a little girl. I've literally named a little girl after you.
Right.
But you're also a little girl. In real life.
Sure. Thanks. And you don't think the age of this character would explain her actions? Fear? Or, I dunno, height restrictions?
Have you ever played RT3?
Er, no.
Figures. You know, I always catch you on the teacups that aren't teacups - the ones that look like little spaceships.
Okay.
Each time you leave it you throw up down the exit ramp. And then you're right back on again. You're driving me nuts. I've got three janitors covering the area - they're underpaid and overworked, miserable because of you.
So pay them more.
You pay them more.
It's a management sim, right? So just manage your way out of the situation.
Wow. Do you ever play games to have fun?
[BR] You could increase the price of the ride to make me less inclined to go on it. I might get less sick and you'd make more money. Put some of that back in those janitors' pockets.
Yeah, I could do that. Doubt I will.
And I'm sure others are having themselves a good, splatter-free time. I can't be the only guest in the park.
No, but you're easily the most annoying. Everyone else pays their money, guzzles my pop and buys tickets. The biggest one looks like a cobra. [BR] KING COBRA, I called it. [BR] You'll never experience its divine twists and turns. You stay in your teacups, jerk. Spaceships. Spacecups. Whatever.
You know it's not me, right? That I have no influence over the actions of my polygonal namesakes?
I know that. But it's so typical of you to be like this. [BR] It reminds me of how irritatingly stubborn you can be. You’re really no fun at all.
... [BR] Remember when I said you had inappropriate responses to the actions of NPCs? [BR] Do I need to bring up Wolfestein 3-D?
This again?
Hitler in a robot suit.
Seriously?
I just can’t imagine what that guy would have had to do, in reality or in the game, to make you pull the trigger. I remember you just shutting the screen off and walking out of the room. To be honest, I have no idea how you made it to the end in the first place. Did I have to do all of the dirty work?
For the millionth time, there was just something in his eyes that begged forgiveness.
There's something in your mind that begs investigation.
Oh my god!
What?
You've done it again! There's vomit everywhere!
Seriously?
Yes. SERIOUSLY. That's it, I'm fencing you in. I'm going to turn you into a sideshow exhibit. A pukey little monkey in a cage. At least that might amuse the other guests. The normal ones.
Are you honestly doing that?
Right now.
Right. Don't you think if you just named him Adolf you might find it easier to sympathise with her?
Fuck off.