So I’ve gotten a bit bored with most of the MOGs I’ve been playing lately. This usually results in me spending hours upon hours fighting evul Axis forces in BF1942 (and sometimes Opposition Forces!), but tonight I decided to try something a little different. A little, as they say in my country, “on the WILD side.”
Yes, yes, I’ve heard all of the horror stories about it. I know several of my friends tried it, only to quit shortly afterwards out of boredom. I get that. However, the truth is that the list of new games that I’m interested in is frighteningly small. Those that I am interested in, also, mostly consist of games that would not only not run on my current system, but break it down, melt it into scrap metal, and then urinate on the pile of scrap.
So I decided to try out Earth and Beyond.
I get the basic premise of the game. I mean, let’s face it – it’s not like they’re pioneering new grounds here. You explore, you mine, or you fight. Or some combination thereof. This is something I got used to playing that ancient game known as Jumpgate. Only the combat interface now consists of clicking buttons and waiting for the results.
You know, like every other game out there right now…
However, you DID do something a little different in this game than in many other games – you actually get out of your ship! Oooooooh! And I’m pretty pleased to note that my character is a GIANT of a man! I’m a hulking, lumbering nightmare of Frakenstienian proportions! When I run down the halls of a space station, their gravity generator shudders!
Of course…this presented a problem. In most MOGs, I get to rely on the fact that bigger = stronger, tougher, generally bad-ass-er. So I’m a bit conditioned after all of my previous experience. When I come across someone smaller than me trying to tell me what to do, YEARS of tradition steps in, and I try and step on that person.
I’m not mean, I’m not a bully – it’s just conditioning, I tell you! Look, in Camelot, when I’m running around as my troll – if a lurikeen shows up in front of me bouncing up and down, my job in that relationship is to try and step on their head as fast as possible. Their job is to make a satisfying ‘crunch’ noise when I accomplish same. That doesn’t make me a bad guy, any more than it makes them an innocent victim, right? It’s simply a matter of – you know – physics.
So now I’m playing this game where I get to really customize my character’s look. So, expecting to never see him again once I start the game, I make him a giant. What the hey, I figure. It’s not like I’ll ever be getting out of my ship, right?
Wrong!
Five minutes into the game, and I’m out of the ship in some space station looking for someone or another to tell me what to do.
Hey man, let’s get something straight here: I don’t need you. I might’ve thought I did, back when I assumed this game was about, you know, spaceships and such. But now that I know that I can get out of my ship and not only run around, but run around with other people, this game takes on a new depth. No longer will I have to concern myself with trying to fly that awkward ship and figuring out how the hell to earn enough to buy a Wave-Motion (TM) cannon! Nosireebob, from now on, I’m going to introduce residents of this galaxy to a little game I like to call, “Gimme your lunch money or I’ll pop your head like a zit!”
As soon as I can figure out which button makes me punch people in the throat, that is. Or maybe I’ll just rip the laser gun off the side of my ship and carry that sucker around the base.
I’m going to pioneer a whole new breed of space pirates in this game, I swear…
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