Swelling...

Is kind of a cool thing. I remember when I got a massive bump on my head from racquetball the night before my flight physical that I spent a lot of time touching it and going ooooh that's neat. Yeah so yesterday I was stupid enough to play football (two hand touch mind you) for pc with my section... On some random play I got a pass and proceeded to juke my way diagonally across the field doing the same move on like six guys in a row, eventually juking my own ankle out of its socket or something. It didn't really hurt when it happened, but by the time I got home it was beginning to be annoying. It kept me up most of last night because I couldn't find a position under the blanket that didn't make it bend and hurt, and by this morning was nice and swollen. Had to cancel both my flights today, quite annoying. Was beautiful weather too, it had better be that way the week I get back when I have to do all three flights I have left or I'll be real bitter.

So what's a guy to do when he can't even walk to the fridge without hopping? Well a computer game or two is always good. Over the past few days I'd been working on one of two games I'd actually gone out and bought to entertain me for the next few weeks before I head off to ASBC, and as predicted Black and White Deluxe ate up a decent chunk of time. I got to the last level which is especially difficult and it was getting old though (this is after somewhere around twelve hours of gameplay) so I decided to move on to something fresh until I had another craving that made me go out and buy the thing in the first place (the downloaded copy isn't patchable, and the bugs in the game without the patch make it basically unplayable. The Myst trilogy was the other game in the back, with both of them only costing 10-15 bucks. My bill at most restaurants is bigger than that. I'll give you the low-down on Black and White when I finish it, but let me say my piece about Myst and its successors. For those who like puzzles, logic, or thinking in general, you really need to install these games. There is a reason that for a while this was the greatest selling PC game of all time. To date the series has sold ten million copies. TEN MILLION. Imagine what small percentage of the population are gamers, and you have to figure a huge percentage played at some point. I'd truly forgotten how much fun it is. There are two feelings that will become familiar to those that dive into the world the developers created. The feeling of having utterly and completely stuck and having no idea what to do. This is the most frustrating thing in the world. Unfortunately, it used to be a lot more so. Before Google, or the devil as I call it when it is used in reference to the term "walkthrough." A walkthrough is a step by step solution of an entire game that someone has posted on the web so anyone who is stuck can immediately go and find the solution and move on. If you're going to try any of these games, I recommend repeating the phrase "walkthroughs are the devil" repeatedly. No matter how stuck you are. This is important for two reasons. First of all, when you realize what little thing you missed, or how simple the solution really was, you will feel like the world's biggest idiot. You can try to pretend like you would have figured it out eventually, but admit it, you caved. Second, the feeling of actually solving a puzzle, and in the case of some more complex ones watching it all come together, is one of true satisfaction. I tell you I almost feel as good solving a major problem as I do winning a jackpot. Almost. Then again you don't get paid to play computer games. Then again I do.

If you don't get stuck, Myst is only about 5-6 hours or so. In reality, it might be something like double that. Although I'd never even beaten the game prior (I'd got stuck when it first came out in 93, before walkthroughs) I had the advantage of having the memory of how to solve many of the puzzles. Thus about 2/3 of the game went through very quickly. Speaking of quick, since the game is so old, and modern computers are so fast, the game runs MUCH faster than previously. Literally split second load times for each frame, you can migrate around islands in seconds. Funnier still is the fact it only takes 2mb of hard drive space. As a good comparison as games travel through time, Riven takes up what at the time was a tremendous 85mb, or forty times the space of Myst. Then you have the more recent Exile, which takes up an astounding 2.1 gigs, or 2100mb or so. Cha-ching. Anyway back to the games, as a whole, the difficulty of the puzzles of Myst are not very difficult. I didn't use a walkthrough then, and I didn't use one this time either. Now if you move to the next title in the series called Riven, you're taking a big step. First of all I recommend playing them in order if you care that much, because the storylines make a lot more sense that way, kind of like a movie series. Second, the puzzles in Riven are much more difficult. Individual puzzles are still very doable, but there are a few greatly complex ones that require applying a whole bunch of stuff you've learned along the way to one conundrum. When I first played this game when it came out (I bought it, but later let someone borrow it and they never gave it back, the bastards) I made it a pretty good distance with no walkthrough, I'd say about halfway. Then I caved and used it for what turned out to be the most difficult quagmire, then for some reason stopped and never finished the game. This time around obviously getting back to that point was relatively easy, although I only really remembered premonitions about different parts of the game. There are really a couple parts that are just ridiculously fiendish. You'd literally just have to click all over the screen at times to randomly accidentally flip some hidden switch or push some hidden button. The vastness of the world makes it impossible to know where you should be doing this, as if you're stuck on one island logically it will seem like something somewhere else will unlock that door, or open that hatch, or whatever, when in reality the answer is right in front of you and wandering around everywhere else gains you nothing.

Riven as a whole is more like ten hours if you have an unfair advantage of previously playing parts of it like I had, and I'm guessing at least twenty or thirty otherwise. Definitely one of the longer games out there, and more difficult. I'd really seriously like to watch someone else play it. Someone of high intelligence especially. Other than the previously mentioned fiendishly difficult parts, there's really no reason someone smart shouldn't be able to beat this game. It's just interesting to see what kinds of things get different kinds of people stuck. What is completely obvious to me seems impossible to someone else. It's kind of like that who looks up when they walk into a closet thing. Some people check their back seats every time they get in a car, some people would carry around an alligator back there for days before noticing. Being observant helps tremendously in these games, you might walk down a hall or path like twelve times before finally spotting what you needed to. I seriously recommend it to anyone smart enough to enjoy the challenge. If you want hints ask me, it's much more satisfying to receive a bump in the right direction and come to the right conclusion yourself eventually than just reading it in plain text and going OH DUH.

So yes, get your hands on a copy of this game if you like a challenge. It's simple, takes five seconds to learn how to play, and can provide hours of entertainment. Did I mention the worlds, Riven's in particular, are asbolutely beautiful? I'm seriously looking for some of the stills to use as desktops. They truly look like what a fantasy world would be, to the point you pretty much feel like you're there. I won't give away any details, but at one point I literally flinched in a big way and started away from the screen due to an event that occurred. Pretty rare that you see that in a game that doesn't involve grenades at point blank range.

Ah, the clock strikes midnight, guess it's time for sleep. Tomorrow, I'll try out the third installment in the series, Exile. Never played it, and I'll be darned if I'm not going to beat it without using a walkthrough. Hm triple negative there. Think it made sense. Should be interesting to see how long it actually takes... This whole can't walk thing is rough I tell ya.