Not Quite a Short Story: Free Fall

I wrote this almost two years ago and it was kind of inspired by a level in the game "Wet" and a particular scene from the Bond flick "The Spy Who Loved Me." It was cool to play another scenario like the one below in the opening minutes of "Saints Row: The Third."

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I can hear wind. It's whistling and it feels like I'm falling. I open my eyes in a squint.

I am falling and I grab my chest, clawing at a rip chord that isn't there. It's then that I notice debris falling with me. A fuselage of some kind of plane matches my speed. I point myself toward it. I inch closer to it on the wind and in the dim moonlight the interior becomes visible.

I reach the jagged edge of the fuselage and hold on to it, using what little leverage I have to haul myself in. It's dark so I fumble the walls, floor and ceiling or some order of the three. My fingers touch something familiar.

I strap the parachute to my back and kick off one of the seats to get myself clear of the debris. The ground is so close, I can easily make out features of the city below framed in the glow of streetlights and vehicle traffic. I pull the chord and there's a dull flapping sound and the world jerks up with a punch. My broken ribs scream and my breathing struggles in ragged chunks.

The debris begins to the hit earth.

So very close to the ground, searchlights suddenly hold me. It's quickly followed by a sputtering of gun fire. A massive explosion rocks the area above me, another one a hundred feet to my right.

I steer myself toward a black area and hope for the best. At the rate I'm falling, I should be able to make it, unless the fireworks from the ground manage to punch a hole in my salvation.

My Feminine Side

I made a sudden realization over the weekend that the last number of games I've played, if the option to to play a female character is included, that's the option I take.

Saints Row: The Third, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic, SSX (I'll pick Elise over any other character) and now Mass Effect 3.

Why is this? It hasn't been a concious choice to play all these games -- almost in a row -- to see if the "female experience" is any different than the usual male experience. I just picked that character. Is it a response to having played so many games with a male protagonist? At this point I'm not sure but I do think it deserves some more thought.

If there was a robot option would I want to play as one? Is that my next stop when it comes to choosing a protagonist avatar? Right now, games are making me think but for very different reasons. I'm thinking more about myself than any theme or design choice or game mechanic.

The only change I made to my Saints Row: The Third character was her skin color. She was green for a long time.

Current PC Gaming Machine

It's an extended loaner unit, but what I'm gaming on right now is an Alienware laptop, the M18x.

"Laptop" is kind of a misleading description. This is quite easily a desktop replacement that just so happens to be portable. In form factor and function, there's no mistaking it for anything other a piece of hardware in the laptop family. The dead give away is the screen that folds down but I'm not sure how much gaming would actually be done with the M18x sitting on a persons lap.

For starters, it's heavy! (Close to 12 lbs!) While some laptops have gone the route of thinner and smaller, the M18x is akin to a V8 Hummer. So, it's heavy and big. And that's okay by me -- it means the screen is also a generous size. In short: It's perfect for a desk.

But I'll have a more in-depth review of the hardware closer to the end of March, for now I need to mention at least one number that I can remember off the top of my head:

Half-Life 2 (and its episodes) maxed out everything = 300 frames per second (fps) according to FRAPS

Saints Row: The Third looks best on PC. No lie.

And while I can't remember the exact numbers for the likes of Left 4 Dead 2, Crysis, Red Alert 3, StarCraft II, Batman: Arkham City, Portal 2, Homefront, and Team Fortress 2, the fact I can turn all the settings to "10" and not see any performance hits makes me appreciate the kind of horsepower built into the machine. (And by any, I mean any.) The only game so far that seems to have chugged, even just a bit, was Saints Row: The Third with the settings maxed to 8x anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. And even then it was an acceptable chug (to me) of ~25 fps. For ~$2,000 I'd expect that but actually seeing it in motion... yeah, PC Master Race Tendencies are difficult to squelch. The games look appreciably better than on console. And finally seeing Crysis running at max settings? It's hard to believe the game came out in 2008. It looks so good!

The Finishing Touches...

I woke up this morning still feeling like I’d been attacked by fire ants – will I ever feel well again? – but I still managed to put the finishing touches on my Saints Row: The Third (PC) review. Still needs an edit pass or two, but at least it’s mostly done.

I think I had more fun with the this version of the game simply because control was much more precise and I went into the experience with my eyes wide open, knowing what to expect and being familiar with the layout of the city. I previously put a bunch of hours into the Playstation 3 version, but this second play through on the PC just felt better. I had more fun with it. The same thing happened with Batman: Arkham City.

I’m trying to put my finger on exactly why. Maybe it has something to do with playing them on an Alienware M18x. Or maybe it has to do with sitting close to the screen, which is something I’ve missed while playing games from the couch. It deserves more thought at the very least. I need to identify why the PC versions of these games are somehow better. Or at least why I’m perceiving them as being better.

Next on my playlist is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim… unfortunately, I didn’t get a crack at the console versions so I can’t make that kind of PC vs. console comparison.

And since we’re half-way through January my mind has already turned to September and PAX Prime. If a GFW Radio Reunion doesn’t happen this year, I think that’ll be it. But that might just be the fire ants talking.

A Few Saints Row: The Third (PC) screens

Character creation is a great feature of Saints Row: The Third. While some games put you through the rigmarole of creating a character you only see the back of, SRTT has your character on-screen and interacting all the time. It's makes your character decisions matter!

The lighting/heat effects are awesome. I just wish the flame thrower was much more readily available.

The "Sex Appeal" slider during character creation is basically the "boob" and "crotch" slider. The higher the sex appeal, the bigger the boobs.

Glorious destruction!

Saints Row: The Third

So, I just posted Tazman's review of Saints Row: The Third and he seems to have enjoyed it quite a bit. Click the gratuitous cleavage shot to reach the climax of the full review (you know you want to):

I'm playing the Playstation 3 version between bouts of Battlefield 3, which is pretty damn awesome (outside the single player campaign which is merely so-so). Saints Row: The Third has some pretty sharp writing and never seems to take itself seriously. It's a game world, and the designers revel in it!