Zen and The Art of Gamerscore Maintenance #3 (captainx)

[admin]

Captainx: Star Pilot, Tank Commander, Soccer Star, Adventuer, Special Ops Soldier, Coach, Wild West Hero, Genetic Accident, Game Developer, Science Officer, Tactical Controller, Tomb Raider, Poker Player, Freedom Fighter and King.

The suspension of disbelief starts here.

So far so good, I’ve claimed the throne of my kingdom from my brother, had him executed for being so pasty and vanquished the evil spilt ink threat that was about to overwhelm my shiny new kingdom, now what?

Well, I thought, sorry expected to be able to run my kingdom the way I saw fit. It seems I can’t. This may have something to do with the fact that very much like a twisted psychometric test the run up to vanquishing evil split black ink creatures offered me choices, moral choices. So I obviously did what any sane person does when confronted with an overrated psychometric test – I took the path of righteousness, the path I believed was the correct one in the eyes of the God of Albion. Obviously there is more to running a kingdom than making fair decisions and that is why I had no gold worth mentioning and the resulting massacre of my people actually bettered the loss of an entire crew of intergalactic badasses during a galaxy saving suicide mission.

Back to the ruling thing, I’m not fixated on ruling like Prince Charles is, but I think it would have been a step in the right direction, promotion if you would. A way to flex my managerial skills garnered over decades of ruthless football management, just the right experience to turn a profit in the Kingdom of Albion. If I can take Lincoln City from the bottom of Division 3 to the top of Premiership and European success, then I must be the man to get Albion back on it’s feet. All I need is a balance sheet and control of the staff, would it have been too much to ask Mr Molyneux? I could have fostered trade agreements, invested in industry, brought steam power into every home in Bowerstone, I could have put my pile of wealth to good use.

Speaking of piles of wealth, I know my rental yield on every property in Albion is too high for the market to sustain, but somehow the people keep paying me even though they are allegedly all dead and there is no advancing economy. I could reduce the rents, considering I have nothing to spend the gold on, I could really reduce the rent, but then I can’t be arsed to visit every single property individually to do so. Besides which there is a guilty pleasure in climbing atop that mound of gold heaped in my sanctuary and marveling at the distant floor.

The whole experience has left me with an itch to scratch, before I wandered the hills and tombs of Albion I tried a wee sojourn with the Grey Wardens, that didn’t end well, we parted company pretty quickly and having enjoyed the high profile role of highness, it’s probably time for something a little more off the beaten track. Maybe a few missions in a fancy nano-suit, stealthing and shooting or back to the job I tried out before adventuring, surviving necromorphs in space. Not sure why I left that job, oh yes, I had a spell as a freedom fighter for the US during their Korean invasion – that was fun in an 80’s movie kind of way.

Thus my time in Albion draws to a close, if we were in Middle Earth I would be heading to the Gray Havens with Gandalf, as we are in Real Earth and there are some tasty titles coming along I need to carry on chipping away at my to do list.

• More co-op: Once frowned upon by gamers, co-op opens up the fun and it is probably the only way I will finish Gears of War 2 on Insane.


• Legendary Halo 3 and ODST. After replaying Reach on Legendary I felt that I was less of a gamer for not knocking off the other two.


• Dugeon Hunter Alliance: As soon as the PSN is back up, I will risk my credit card on this beauty, because I need a reason to keep the console until Last Guardion / ICO remix both drop…

“The odds are against us and the situation is grim? Sounds like fun.”

Read more and discuss...