Let’s Do Some Crimes!

In this article I chronicle my top five gaming moments of all time.  Most of these instances are funny; some are filled with pathos.  In each case, however, I was committing at least a few felonies, which is the point of this column.  (I realize I probably should have posted this as my first column, but the new Walking Dead game had just come out when I started, and I recognize the gory, undead hand of Opportunity when I see it.)

It has also come to my attention after writing this column that I am a shameless partisan of the Fallout franchise.  So mote it be.

5. Asheron-Be-Nimble, Asheron-Be-Quick (Asheron’s Call)

They say you never forget your first time, and Asheron’s Call (AC) is no exception.  I can still remember standing in my mother’s garage, laughing with delight while my friend Steve described the game to me.  At the time, AC was the height of gaming technology; now it serves as a repository of the kind of nostalgia and bitterness so common among aging people everywhere.  My stories about AC are the “we had to walk uphill both ways” equivalent of my generation.  (“There was no automatic corpse-finding function in the game…when you died, you had to try to remember where you got killed, and then wander around, manually looking for your corpse!  It could take hours!  Also, in those days you could feed your entire family for a nickel.”)

One of my favorite all-time moments of play was a side-effect of the crippling lag that plagued the game.  I came across a drudge (a humanoid cat creature) and, being the showoff that I am, I tried to jump over it.

At that moment, however, there was a huge lag spike.  When it was over, my character was standing squarely on the drudge’s head, and I couldn’t jump back off.  I was stuck standing on the head of a yowling cat-man like some awful totem pole dedicated to domestic animal abuse.  When faced with such a situation, there is of course only one reasonable course of action: I stabbed the drudge to death from the top of its own head while it ran around, flailing and screaming in a way totally appropriate to the situation.  I can still hear the screams…and they are still hilarious.

4.  These aren’t the noobs you’re looking for (World of Warcraft)

Although most content in the World of Warcraft consists of computer-generated foes, player vs player (PvP) experience allows you to hunt the most dangerous game.  Only in PvP combat do you face other players, opponents whose speed and cunning are a match for your own.  Only in PvP combat do you ride the ragged edge of tactics and twitch reflexes.  Only in PvP combat do you routinely get called “fag” by members of your own team.

During one of my first PvP battleground fights, I was perched high atop a cliff at the lumber mill.

I was protecting this resource when a member of the opposing team showed up, and we squared off.  As a healer, I was at a decided disadvantage, and had resigned myself to losing the fight.  However, it was at that moment that I wondered if my mind-control power would function in PvP the way it did with game-generated monsters.  I cast the spell, and was immediately put in control of the other player’s character.  I imagined the other player’s frustration as he mashed his keyboard, powerless to stop me as I walked his character to the edge of the cliff.  I savored his rage and fear as I hit my spacebar, causing my enemy to leap to his grisly death.  During that moment, I became one with God.

3.  Welcome to Thunderdome (Fallout 3)

As a long-time fan of the Fallout franchise, I was more than a little skeptical about Fallout 3, and the introduction to the game didn’t do much to allay my suspicions.  The initial scenes involve a lot of exposition, and are visually about as exciting as you’d expect things to be in an underground, fluorescent-lit vault.

Eventually, however, I made my way out into the Capital Wasteland.  I can still remember my awe as I got my first glimpse of this post-Apocalyptic hell.

There is a powerful sense of belonging in knowing that you aren’t the only person in the world who thinks that the horrifying end consequence of man’s inhumanity to man should look this totally fucking badass.  From the eerily chipper soundtrack to the pornographically violent VATS hand-grenade deaths, every part of the game takes its cue from this initial, catastrophic image.  Fallout 3 is arguably the best game I’ve ever played, and this scene is the real beginning of that experience.

2. I’ll catch you on the flip side (Fallout New Vegas)

*SPOILER*

In the opening scene of Fallout New Vegas, a smarmy rat-packian gangster named Benny snickered and shot me in the face, right out of the gate.

Later in the game, that same slimy bastard played me for a sucker and twenty-three skidooed out the back of a hotel, foiling my plans once again.  I was pretty mad at Benny, but I had other things on my mind–platinum chips, highbrow cannibals, a sexbot named “Fisto.”  So my rage cooled, and I moved on like a mature adult with a machine gun that fires tiny grenades.  My character had been invited to meet with Caesar, the powerful leader of a neo-Roman army of slavers and pedophiles (I’m guessing about the pedophile part, but come on, I can’t be that far off).  I was Skyping with a friend at the time, and the two of us were narrating our various crimes, as I walked into Caesar’s tent.

And there, hogtied on the floor, was Benny.

“BENNY!” I shouted into my headset.  “Buddy!  I’m so happy to see you!”  My friend still laughs when she talks about the genuine joy in my voice as I gloated over the ignominious capture of my nemesis.  She’s right, of course–I was truly, deeply happy to see this guy get what was coming to him, which is why my column is entitled the way it is.  We are all of us virtual psychopaths, we nerds (including my Skype friend, who not only stabbed Benny to death, but went around wearing his suit as part of a string of clothing-related murders).

1. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here (Fallout)

*SPOILER*

The original Fallout was so engrossing that I occasionally played through the night.  This was my first “Holy shit, is that the SUN?” experience (although certainly not my last).  That this game, with its terrible crane-shot, Monopoly-esque graphics could have held my attention so thoroughly is a testament to the depths of the story.  The Fallout story, however, is a harsh mistress.  At the very end of the game, I returned to the Vault to lay down arms and try to forget about the many, many murders I had committed in the Wasteland.  However, I was turned away by the very people who’d asked for my help in the first place, because I’d grown too violent and dangerous.  This was a pinnacle moment for me, in terms of telling a good story.  I was furious with these hypocrites for casting me out into the mud and blood, then telling me I was too dirty to come home.  But I also knew, deep down, that they were right.  I’d left the Vault to help my people survive, and I’d done that.  But along the way I’d taken to wearing power armor and shooting people with a minigun over relatively minor disagreements.  I’d blackmailed a man, rather than turning him in for selling human flesh from his concession stand.  I’d probably also gotten a shitty tribal tattoo on one of my biceps.  In short, I had gazed into the Abyss too long, and it made perfect sense for the other Vault dwellers to cancel my lease.  After this cutting, anticlimactic discussion (made all the more interesting because I’d taken the “Bloody Mess” perk, and blew my old boss into Spaghetti-Os when he’d turned me away), I walked off alone as a sad song played.  I had no idea what was ahead of me (and certainly wouldn’t have predicted a decent sequel in which you get to drive a car).

I know that you have favorite moment stories that meet or exceed those I’ve posted today.  Please feel free (nay, compelled) to briefly describe one of your favorite gaming moments in the comments section below.  The winner of this little contest has already received a lifetime supply of awesomeness. —BW