In a disturbing development, I have become addicted to a video game. It has infected my mind. I roam its shattered landscape in my dreams. It’s eaten into blog writing time and that’s no good for the roiling creative drive in my loins (eyeeew).
It’s not even a new game. I picked it up for 30 bucks on a whim. It was sitting next to the thing I was sent to the shop to buy, and the cover design caught my eye. If I can lose my personal will to a three-year-old video game, what’s going to happen when total-immersion holographic environments are available? You’ll find my emptied, inanimate husk with a sensory helmet and a grin on its head, by following the smell.
Damn you Fallout 3 and your depressing, yet fascinating world. Damn you to the fiery, apocalyptic hell of which you so ably illustrate the aftermath.
I have to pull out. I have to make the break. In stages, though baby, in stages. I can’t go cold turkey. I’ve decided to try and kill two mutant birds with one irradiated stone in an effort to get back into the real world. I need to write a blob. Yeah, writing and an addiction in one go – how could you not be entertained?
The Diary of AGA’s Character, in Fallout 3.
Dear Diary,
It’s been an odd sort of day. I came to consciousness with a bright light in my face and Liam Neeson leaning over me in a paternal manner. He bade me welcome to the world, made me pick my name and my gender, fussed around with a lady next to me and then quickly left the room. I gather the lady was my mother, but I’m not certain. She didn’t last long and I didn’t get a chance to question her closely on intent, relations, worth-in-caps or upcoming moves. The next thing I knew, I was cruelly thrust forward in time and found myself inside a drab room with the bars of a playpen blocking my way to a heavy door. If this is childhood, it’s brief, it’s entirely grey and someone needs to see to the amount of fluffiness. There’s way too little fluffiness.
Liam came in to the boring room again and started banging on about things I needed to do and made some broad hints about character defining stuff – he left the room pretty quickly again. I’m confused as to how I knew it was Liam Neeson. It’s sort of like I have the spirit of a bloke from 21st Century Australia talking in my mind, like a poorly qualified puppeteer. I seem to know inconsequential things about a place and a time that is very far away. I would get to the bottom of this, but first I had to see what Liam was on about.
Dealing with the bars of the playpen was easy and the puppeteer, or my Spirit Guide as I will think of him, advised me to trundle around the room looking for everything I could to pick up and steal. Not finding anything immediately useful, I sat down to read the only book that was at toddler height i.e. on the floor.
At this point, you might be wondering. Reading? Toddler? I’ll put this down to Spirit Guide shenanigans again. Anyway, I read a nice story where I got to move numbers around on the book, which apparently affected the basic attributes of my physical and mental make-up. This is tough work for a little girl, but Spirit Guide (SG) had some pretty strong ideas on what makes up a useful individual in this world.
I had the feeling he’d had a previous vessel to commune with and had found them wanting. I got the real feeling that he had a plan for me. He said I was going to be S.P.E.C.I.A.L. The Spirit Guide (SG) also gets a bit funny about that and starts to laugh and talk about “Special Olympics”.
I’m not sure what any of this is about, but as far as I can tell, I have:
Strength: of an ox
Perception: of ox poo
Endurance: of an ox
Charisma: of the worm that lives in the ox poo
Intelligence: of the Dean of Smartology at Oxford
Agility: of an ox
Luck: of an ox who, when being transported to the abattoir, is accidentally loaded on to the wrong truck and ends up hosting Top Gear
Like I said, Dear Diary, it’s been a funny old day, let’s [Do You Want To Overwrite This Data] and see what the next one brings. I think that Spirit Guide (SG) might be good and kind... or some kind of wanker.
Yours,
jules (SG cannot do capitals on a console.)
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