Forget Those Machines…
Posted by Kwip on April 13th, 2005 | 3 Comments 
Okay, I’ve completely switched sides.
Remember how I was all about the Machines? Yeah, well, it turns out that they are actually kind of pricks and not the sort of guys you want to party with. Unless your idea of a fun involves counting the paperclips in a drawer. Or melting Keanu Reeves’ mouth shut. But, really, who doesn’t dream about that?
Exiles, on the other hand, know how to get down. Perhaps I’m bitter because none of the Agents I interacted with wanted to give me the time of day. A few kicks to the head and bullet holes, but no time of day.
But I met up with my first Exile operative, Raini. Besides being named after one of the coolest Production Artists I know, Raini is a woman that knows how to get crazy.
For starters, her missions are always completely bat-shit insane. Instead of the whole "Fetch an important bit of information from X and deliver it blah blah blah…" her missions are more along the line of "Score some DRUGS and then stash the DRUGS in my safe and KILL EVERY MOTHERFUCKER that gets in your way!"
Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating. But only the MF’er word. And I think she WANTED to say that, but was afraid Warner Bros. would can her ass if she got their game slapped with an ‘M’ rating.
For my very first mission for Raini, I was supposed to track down some naughty operatives that weren’t helping her like they were supposed to. So I chase these guys down, and it turns out they’re holed up in an apartment with two Blue Pills. Only they’ve already killed one of the Blue Pills (the husband) and now the wife is screaming non-stop while I deliver a little Fist a la Kwip to the bad guys.
Just out of curiousity – honestly, I wasn’t trying to be evil at this point, I was just curious – I targeted the wife just to see if I could attack an ‘innocent’ bystander.
Standing over her corpse 30 seconds later, I learned two things:
- Housewives in the Matrix all know Kung Fu.
- They don’t know enough Kung Fu to save me from BEATING THEIR ASSES.
I even got to loot the corpse of the housewife after I had beaten her to death. I’m telling you, I felt like I had walked right out of a Quentin Terantino movie at this point.
And THEN, just to make the experience even BETTER, my Operator had to show that although he couldn’t kill any housewives in his present non-wired condition, he could at least make jokes at their expense with the best of them.
Somehow I have a hard time picturing Dozer or Link cracking jokes if Morpheus punched in a housewife’s brainpan. Of course, they didn’t have to worry about making the awesome ME mad and having me come out of the Matrix to share the brainpan-punches.
No, once I found the Exiles, I think Zion had written me off. I mean, they stood a chance against the Machines. They could still offer me the whole cave-orgy scene, and that’s a pretty strong temptation, I must confess. But the Exiles – well, forget it. Zion tried to call me to offer me an orgy, and I couldn’t answer the phone from the pile of naked Tina Fey and Gillian Anderson constructs pinning me down.
Plus, Zion wants to free all the humans and the Machines want to control all the humans. Me, I’ve never really liked most humans, so I’m perfectly content with the Exile’s plans to ignore most of the humans and spend our time pretending to be vampires.
And running drugs and killing rivals, of course. Working for the Merovingian is like working for a rap star. Only it’s a rap star that can walk through walls, climb ceilings, regenerate limbs, and has tons of followers that wear crazy leather outfits. Like if Martha Stewart were a rap star.
One thing I have learned on these missions is that I don’t really need guns. In beta I was trying hard to become a Gunslinger, so I would almost always use a gun (or two, as the case warranted). But since retail, all I’ve ever done is punch people in the mouth. I almost feel like a Jackie Chan movie – even going into the most well-armed fight, I’ll take my knuckles over a firearm any day.
I’d like to say it’s because I’m so awesome at being a ninja, but the truth is because – well, no, it IS because I’m so awesome at being a ninja! But there’s also the very real threat of getting disarmed in a fight. Every time I got in a tough fight, some smart-ass (especially those damn Agents) would manage to disarm me, and then I’d become all confused, trying to figure out how to get my shiny gun back. No, straight-up brain-punching for me, thanks.
Of course, I tried to find some people out there that could train me in my ninja-ness, thinking that someone with the name "Master Argona" and talked about as if they’re a Kung Fu Master would, I don’t know, be a Master. At Kung Fu. You know, like the old blind guy on the TV show?
Instead, Master Argona is a brain-damaged fortune-cookie writer that can’t even find a good outfit. I guess I should know by now that if I want to find someone to teach me how to flip out and kick people’s heads off, I really shouldn’t be talking to homeless guys standing in front of cargo containers.
I should be looking for the old asian guy that does maintenance at apartments…
We saw that offer and countered it with a world where we lived in sewers and got torn apart by cybernetic octopuses.
And never mind the celebrities; just think of how many rich, uptight conservatives were freed from the “illusion” of the Matrix, only to discover their new home is in a cave, surrounded by a bunch of dirty, free-love-embracing hippies? Yeah, gee, I don’t know why ANYONE would want to help the Machines…
It started by just offering people guns to join their side. Let’s face it: gamers got bored with the Matrix pretty quick. Agent Smith might’ve talked about losing whole “crops” of Humans in the first Matrix, but the truth is they just alt+tabbed into Hearts. Because although the graphics and sound system to the Matrix might be kicking, it’s still only kicking your normal 1999 landscape. If someone had mentioned to the machines that randomly throwing attractive naked people on trampolines on every corner would’ve kept gamers’ interest for much longer, I doubt we would’ve had these problems. Throw in a few rocket launchers and sniper rifles, and we’re hooked for life. But then the Zionists show up, and they’re all, “Hey, join our side and you get GUNS!”
But finally, after all was said and done, everyone was prepared to back off and settle for their own little slice of space. Until someone mentioned how cool it was to be Kung Fu fighting every day. And how sexy black trench coats and purple sunglasses are. Not to mention how great we all looked in the Matrix – nothing but rock-hard abs, tight butts and skin-tight clothes to show off those awesome bods.
Not in a bugged way or anything. It’s just that having played this game since early Beta, I REALLY don’t want to have to sit through the tutorial for EVERY character I make! That’s pretty ridiculous. I thought City of Heroes proved this was a bad idea after they fixed it. Guess not.
Still, I was unbelievably delighted with how smoothly the game was running right at launch. It was running so smoothly for me, in fact, that I was able to charge right up to the nearest Agent and begin sweet-talking him.
Yeah, so, wusses aside, I was all set for this mission. The best part about getting a mission to kill someone is that not only do you get to kill them, you get to go through all their stuff beforehand!
The next mission was a bit of a bore. One of those fetch missions I so hate. But the good news is that it started out in an apartment full of dead bodies!
