It happened last night. Claire and I came home from the pub last night, which is probably the most British thing I ever said. And that's when we realized we were down one lizard. Earl Grey is no more.
I remember writing about his condition a few months back, because I noticed the weight loss. He was still active, he still ate, but he kept fading away until he was nothing but skin and bones. Old bearded dragons don't always have the decency to get it over with. They deteriorate in slow motion, dying just a tiny bit each day. It's the kind of depressing crap that makes me want to stop giving unwanted lizards a home.
Earl Grey was the most miserable little beardie I've ever seen. On a good day he'd inflate and puff up at people, run and hide and freak the fuck out when you tried to touch him. He'd calm down after a while, but he was constantly scared and jumpy. I really don't know what his previous owner(s) must have done to him, but it probably wasn't very nice.
And that's just it. He sat there at the shop all day, tiny, angry, malnourished and attacking the glass if anyone got too close to him. Nobody wanted him so I kept talking to Claire until she'd finally let me have him. He always hated me. Puffed up at me the moment I came anywhere near him. I could feed him and pick him up, but he'd always need a lot of convincing beforehand.
I think he tolerated his cagemate, Nomnom. He'd sleep on top of her for some reason. If anyone got anywhere near her, he'd rush out of his cave and try to scare you off. It was weird. Like some aging cavalier watching over his lady friend. They never had babies and I assume Earl was simply too old for that kinda crap, but he protected her and he always stayed by her side.
Bearded dragons are to lizards what chickens are to birds. They're dumb. They don't learn any tricks. You put them somewhere and they just stay there and stare at you. You can put one on your head if you want and it'll just stay there. It might crap on you, but other than that it'll just sit there and put up with your shit. That's what beardies do. That's why they're such popular pets around here. They don't mind being picked up. They don't mind if you take them places. They just sit and look at stuff all day. I like them.
Somebody bought this adorable little guy one day, probably as a toy. For entertainment. They managed to turn a social, friendly animal into a nervous wreck, that would always choose to flee or to fight for its life whenever it saw a human being. And then they brought him back when he was little more than a scaly skeleton. And nobody bought him. Because he was broken. Unwanted. So we picked him up, fed him, bathed him, looked after him for a year until he died. It's probably a bit stupid to get so attached to a pet that never even liked me, but I really don't think I want any more beardies from now on. I'm tired of putting dead animals into the ground.
But they'll keep coming. One day another random person will bring a snake, a turtle, a lizard, some unwanted, unloved pet to the shop. And he's gonna sit there and rot and nobody will pick him up. Great.
Life isn't fair. Life doesn't give a fuck about justice. I get that. But some of us are fortunate to have a fucking choice. Some of us get to choose how we want to make everyone in our lives, coworkers, family, pets, everyone, feel. You can go through life as a bully and make everyone around you feel like shit. You can try and make everyone a little happier, make them feel loved. And that applies to pets, too. They aren't toys. They don't exist for your entertainment. They never asked to be born and bred to be pets. You don't have to spoil them. But don't treat them like crap. Because morons like me get to pick up the pieces and then we end up burying them for you. Because you never gave a shit.
I've started writing a little something on the side. Not sure how much time I'll get to update it, what with paid work getting in the way all the time and everything. And I've only just started. But it's something. :P
I've officially reviewed the worst game of the year thus far. And chances are, it'll remain the worst game of 2015, because this one is incredibly tough to beat - Alone in the Dark: Illumination. I wanted to give it a 9/100, the colleagues talked me into bumping it up to 23, because you can actually (kind of) play it, even though there's really not much of a game here.
The original Alone in the Dark was released in 1992. I don't think I even had my own PC back then, so I never played it myself, but it's the first ever 3d survival horror game, which inspired games like Resident Evil. You took control of dapper 1920s detective Edward Carnby, who solved puzzles and fought Lovecraftian horrors using what's probably the least user-friendly control and menu system in gaming history. Being the skilled pugilist that he was, some baddies would simply succumb to Carnby's mighty fists, though tougher enemies required the use of bows, mirrors and other such helpful tools, as was explained in books scattered throughout the mansion. The whole thing was pretty clever, really.
Then came Atari and re-imagined the whole thing with their new game, Alone in the Dark: Illumination. Did they get it right? Well, let me put it this way: the game is a 4 player cooperative shooter, which requires you to utilize light sources in order to fight monsters. So not only did they turn a stricly solo survival horror franchise and turned it into a brainless multiplayer shooter, but they also changed it from 'Alone in the Dark' to what's technically together in the light.
The game plays and feels like an early alpha, but this thing isn't Free2Play, it's no early access title - it's supposed to be a release version, which costs a whopping 30 Dollars on Steam. Then you fire that baby up and there's not even an intro. Start the game with one of the 4 playable characters (and only one, as this game has an average daily player count of 4, with an all-time maximum peak of 36.) and you're greeted by a basic text box.
Fresh corpse in a completely abandoned city, because fuck consistency with the story.
What you get is some generic story about how you're investigating a city, which has been deserted, forgotten and avoided by people, because of its "supernatural darkness", which is rumoured to hang around there. It also says that on the official website, if you actually care. So, the city is empty, it's supposedly "forgotten", yet everybody is afraid of weird apparitions and darkness there. Also, the damn place is littered with corpses, which seems a bit strange, seeing as nobody is supposed to be fucking living there and the place had been abandoned for years, but what do I know?
You get a text popup like this at the beginning of every level. That's all the plot there is.
There's a slider for dialogue loudness in the options menu, but no dialogue or speech. In fact, there aren't even any NPCs here, no letters, no audio logs, no nothing. I've actually found a hilarious diary when digging through the game's files, but I'll get to that in a bit. For now, let's just say that the story isn't just completely awful, but none of the events described in these text boxes actually take place in the game.
The story describes some greedy corporation, which creates hybrids made of humans and Old Ones and other such crazy nonsense, but you never bump into any of these guys, there's not a trace of said corporation or their badguy CEO. Just the ever same five or so different monsters attacking over and over.
That's really all there is. You walk from one of the whopping 12 levels to the next, collect batteries to power up some stupid generator, shoot monsters and read text boxes. No puzzles, no secret strategies to killing certain monsters, no nothing. This thing is little more than a skeleton, a concept of a game. And it's so hilariously broken... look, even if you don't speak English, check out this section of my video review.
This thing is about the size of a dvd, but you can only carry half of it.
Another feature I love are the background stories for each playable character. The official website describes the priest as follows: "The son of the nation’s most influential religious leaders [...]. With his enhanced abilities to heal and purify even the most extreme cases..."
First of all, the part about him being the son of some religious leaders was so awful, they didn't even bother translate that bit on the official German website for this game. Seriously, you can switch the language on that page and that part simply disappears completely! Oh and that part about him being an amazing healer and what have you? Yeah, the priest doesn't heal shit. He gets three abilities, all of which kill enemies with light. They're all more or less the same thing with slightly different visual FX and there's no fucking healing. Heck, there's no character synergy at all.
But here's the best part: The website introduces the Hunter character as Theodore Carnby, grandson of the original game's Edward Carnby. Now if you dig through the games localization, you'll find a little diary, which explains that Ed and Ted Carndby are supposed to be the same fucking person! Adding the T in front of his name was Carnby's elaborate ruse to hide the fact that he does not fucking age. Yeah, I'm sure he'd totally get away with that clever trick in the real world! Why would they even add such a completely ridiculousy and unnecessary "plot twist"?
I could go on and on and on about how Atari are trying to milk a once popular franchise with a half-assed, unfinished husk of a game, but guess what? I already did, I got decent money for the job and enough extra work to keep me going for a while. Heck, by the end of next week I will have made more money within a single week doing what I actually like (reviewing fucking games, WOO!) than what I used to make in a month with my old news job at the old publisher. Give it another week or two like that and not only will I have a decent rainy day fund (you must have one of those as a freelancer!), but I can also get that GTX 980 to go with my recent CPU upgrade.
My Warframe video review is approaching 50k hits and I've been offered to write a little guide that covers the basics for complete newcomers for a bit of extra money on the side. Basically, it'll be a little bit like this, but for money:
It's 32 degrees centigrade outside and apparently it's the hottest day in the UK since 2006. Being from Germany, I really don't find this particularly "hot" British summer all that unpleasant, but some of our pets aren't dealing with it so well:
It may be time to get him a bigger water bowl.
The cat is fully stretched out right in front of our biggest fan. I didn't know British cats were such wimps. I mean, we're talking about an animal, that wouldn't just sleep in front or on top, but inside an oven if you'd let it inside, because they just love it hot. But apparently they can't take summer for some reason. Curious.
Life is good. Being forced to look around for more work after severing ties with the old magazine turned out to be really helpful. I've got stuff to do and there's money in the bank. The real challenge will be to actually keep most of the money there. Being self-employed is all about discipline. Get to work without anyone telling you to do so. Meet deadlines. Don't spend everything over night during those rare moments where you have a bit of money on the side. But I suppose we all get older, wiser, learn a couple new things from experience. Sometimes when I'm tired in the morning, I actually sit down to pee. Unless I wake up with a huge boner, of course. In case of which I just stand in front of the bath, hands-free and everything, because those wall tiles are super easy to rinse and I'm a grown-up, so YOU CAN'T TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE!
