Bioshock

I rise to my feet, ADAM coursing through my body, the invigorating force that gives me power, makes me invincible. My drained foe lies at my feet, his body deprived of all life, an energy now taken from him by me. Or was he a man? Was this machine ever human? It does not matter; it served only the sole purpose of being destroyed to fuel a higher purpose. He chose to be a slave to be commanded, and the little girl who was turned into an abomination, this bizarre golem's ward, stares at me in horror. It is a reflex that guides me as I grab her and brutally extract that strange creature that dwells in her, and I hold it in my hand as I discard the child's body.
Strange shapes, wearing bizarre masks and crude weaponry all charge at me from everywhere. I see a few of them step on the mines I carefully placed, or stumbling across electric tripwires. One is rammed into the wall by a telekinetically thrown desk, and another, seeking to put out the flames all over his body by seeking water, is lit up by an electric current. One of them tries to run, but not fast enough to avoid the crossbow I have just drawn. There are only corpses around me now, but I know there will be more of these madmen who will come to challenge me, but they will have to catch me on the move... And I will always be prepared.
As I listen to the babbling of the ill-fated citizens of this misfit of a city, I despair over their foolishness and shortsightedness. Why did they record these tapes, leaving others to moan over their stupidity? They spoiled this world, they couldn't handle its opportunities. They were taken down by it. I don't trust Atlas any further than I can throw him, but I feel compelled to follow this lead. There is no other choice for me but to see where it takes me. And on the way I have dealt with men on the edge of insanity and worse, and I find no solace in my own rationality.
It is the impact of this perverted mutation, this bioshock that has overcome their bodies, that has taken them there and will take them further still if not to their deaths.
But second-guessing will not help me here. A moment's compassion means my end. I move on, ruthlessly, heading for my target. Then we'll see what he really looks like, and I will be the judge of his character.

____________________________________________________________________

I just finished Bioshock, and as with most other games of the sort, I'm left with an empty feeling after those hours of constant tension. The grotesquely picturesque underwater city of Rapture, surrounded by the brute force of the Atlantic Ocean, taking pressure from all directions, a beautiful tragedy of neon lights, glass and hard steel. This may be an odd parallel, but the game I was truly reminded of in the first place was Arcanum. Even though Arcanum takes place in what seems more like a 19th century world of industrialism, and though it hasn't much to do with underwater cities, it was the same sense of mystery and intrigue that struck me in the beginning of Bioshock as was the case when I first played Arcanum 5 or 6 years ago. Both games leave you as the sole survivor of a crashlanding, and in both cases you are greeted by a guide in the beginning; Virgil in Arcanum and Atlas in Bioshock. True, you do not actually meet Atlas face to face from the start, but he helps you get your bearings much the same way Virgil does.
However, Bioshock does not leave you with a specific goal. The main character is wrapped in an enigma; you briefly see a picture of his family in the beginning, but as far as the character's moral inclinations are concerned, you are left with a tabula rasa to use as you see fit. There is instantly a feeling of predetermination; as though you are guided down a specific path that you did not choose on your own. Strange coincidences, unanswered questions that remain even when you stand at the very ending.

The world is quite stunningly beautiful. Again, I feel a kinship between Arcanum's sombre violins and the 40s and 50s music that sets a tone of surreality and disillusionment in Bioshock.
Both games seem filled with conspiracy and strange characters of an almost mythical quality.
Andrew Ryan, the creator of the underwater city of Rapture, which is where Bioshock takes place, seems to fancy himself a God of will, and it is reflected in the various audio tapes spread throughout the game, and in the way Ryan speaks to the main character over the radio. A tyrant king, a Xerxes commanding a crumbling empire and a horde of slaves without will; a megalomaniac who feels that all faults were caused not by his misjudgment of human nature, but by the weak-minded people who chose to inhabit his city. The combined genious and horror of Rapture leaves the player with a mixture of awe and terror. The feat of will it took for Andrew Ryan to plan the building of the huge city, and the chaos it took to slowly take it apart.

The only rule is survival of the fittest as you scrounge ammunition and plasmids (strange powers granted through mutation) that aid you in your quest for knowledge and survival. Sometimes you just go in guns blazing, but sometimes it pays off to use every strategic advantage, every potentially reprogrammable gun tower, every trap to your advantage. Using rocket launcher towers to ambush your enemy... Set them on fire to lure them into water for electrocution. Set up electric tripwires and proximity mines. Set up a target dummy to confuse so as to allow you to move behind them. Your enemies are rather mindless, but sometimes they will surprise you with the employment of rather cunning tactics and ambushing techniques. And make sure to either reprogram the local healing machines or kill your wounded enemies before they get away, for if they reach a healing machine they will use it to recover (or get a nasty surprise if you managed to hack the healing machine). So you'll have to use the correct tactics if you don't want to get damaged all the time and waste all your first aid kits. Using the right plasmids and the right ammo is critical. And exactly the fact that various weapons have different kinds of ammo makes sure that no weapon gets quite outdated. The basic revolver, given some anti-personnel ammo and/or upgrades turns out to be devastating against the hordes of splicers (people who have spliced (mutated) themselves beyond recognition) that will come after you. Of course, eventually you'll also be able to turn splicers on each other, or turn entire security systems on your enemies. The tactical versatility that you are capable of makes the combat so much more interesting. The audio tapes and the environment itself will keep you intrigued and will urge you further into the depths of the damned dystopia.

If you are a gamer with a good PC or an Xbox 360, it would be a crime not to treat yourself to this game.

Now, do I play it again or do I play something else? Time will tell... Time will tell...

On the edge.

Feeling on the edge of insanity, almost wishing to fall over it. I think a lot of people have felt that way at some point. I feel that way sometimes, especially when I'm lacking enthusiasm or need an excuse to remain passive. You find yourself wishing you really were bat-fucking-nuts because then you'd have an excuse. Well maybe everyone has their own moments of insanity, and maybe it is just a part of life. It still does not get any more comforting each time.

An overflow of impressions that I need to absorb is what triggers it in me. Reminding me of all psychological loose ends, things I should've said in the past but didn't, things I keep trapped inside. The overflow causes an extra measure of cabin pressure, and things almost start slipping out, but I don't let them. Each time though, they get closer. At some point everything must get out. And I want it to.

It is easy to antagonize life. I know, because it is what I've spent most of my life doing. I'm still doing it, but I hope to break that habit, although I feel I'm constantly given new reasons to continue the same way, a sort of paranoia. After all, when life is not fair to you, you aren't always fair to life either.
Instead of dealing with the sources of your anger or depression, you punish your life. You give up hope, you don't embrace what you have. But I have to be fair to myself, not just in the negative way. I can't only punish myself, especially not for things I am not the cause of. The feeling that some unknown entity has been placing tripwire everywhere I go doesn't help me.
I have epiphanies in the evening that I reject in the morning. Forgetting myself, and doing that forgetting everyone else.

I do not need to stop thinking, but I need to stop overthinking.

And now I'll literally dive (no pun intended) into Bioshock. I've been playing it a bit and I'm thoroughly immersed in it so far, but I can't say anything final until I've pushed a bit further.
If blasting the heck out of an oversized brute clad in strange underwater equipment and armed with a enormous drill is not entertaining, I don't know what is.

Dreamfall

Just completed the game. Again reminding me why Ragnar Tørnquist had better come up with a sequel soon!

Signing off for the night,
some sort of speechless... yet again.

Events

I have an illness. It is possibly neural, but the various doctors, dentists and other people who have had a look at me for the past 7 months haven't quite pinned it down yet. It started in the beginning of this year shortly after I stopped working as a mail man. I felt dizzy. Tension and brain spread from a certain point in my upper jaw, and I was scared as hell. What might it be? Was it dangerous? I was constantly reassured by my parents, but it did not always help. I first saw my dentist, who had a hunch and redirected me to another type of doctor. I was told that I'd have a CT-scan. Instead I arrived at the hospital only to meet a young and incompetent doctor who reserved time for a scan, which I had to wait another series of weeks to get. Various assumptions and conclusions followed after the scan, and I was given some medicine. Which turned out not to work.
I was told that I'd be redirected to the neurologists, but nothing happened, and a few weeks later I contacted them. It turned out I had been forgotten. Meanwhile other symptoms started to show themselves... Irritation in my left hand, tension in most parts of my body. The pain in my jaw grew slightly worse. Given a reminder, they said they'd redirect me immediately. But the neurological department simply directed me back where I came from.
Not for the first time during my time of illness, I screamed and cried. It had already been a little while since I had been supposed to go to Africa to visit a friend and stay with him for 2 months. But it was not possible because of the illness. And another delay was not what I needed.
I contacted my personal doctor who heard me out and contacted the neurologists directly.
I went there. I had a receipt for some medication and assurance that I'd get a more elaborate scan, an MR-scan. The medication did not work, but neural illnesses have a way of being robust, so it may be that some other form of medication is in order. The MR-scan won't happen before the 6th of September. I was hoping I wouldn't have to begin my studies in this state. I was hoping that I could've seen some more of the world before my educational life would move on. But that was not going to happen. Instead I spent 7 months home. Playing games and meeting people over the internet, which was enjoyable, but it was not what I had wished for. And constant doubt and fear instilled by being kept in the dark without a clear diagnosis, even now.

There are people in this world a lot worse off than I am, but for someone who has never experienced anything like it, it is not easy to understand the true implications of 7 months' pain, irritation, fear and disappointment. Anyone who has such an illness, if they did not know of loneliness before, they do now. You may gain support and kind words for your loved ones, but in some situations they cannot understand you because this kind of pain can't be shared.

But now I know that I will remain in doubt while I study, and I will have to accept that.
A few days ago I met some of the people I am going to study with, and I saw the environment in which my studies will take place. I gained some information and got a general feel of the place.
Most of my fellow students are girls and/but (depends on your view) the ones I spoke to seemed open-minded, and I have a good feeling about it all. Of course, you can't really get to know anyone on such a thin basis, so I'll have to see how things work out during the coming period of social activities, and then when the real studies begin in September. Everyone is curious about the things we are going to learn, and though I've dabbled in it before, I don't know all that much about linguistics.
My resolve is not usually the strongest, but knowing that I can keep in touch with old friends and hopefully new ones, I feel my resolve strengthen through hope.

Yesterday I went to see some of my former classmates, and though we weren't many who showed up, it was one of the best days I've had in a while. One year is quite a while, but it makes me relieved that people haven't changed all too much. They were all familiar and even though I had not seen them in a long time, it was easy to start talking without too much restraint, and it made it easier to ignore the constant pain. That little reunion was another source of hope to me.
And while we were walking over to see a couple of my former classmates' appartment, I bumped someone from my first school whom I hadn't seen for 6 years. It was a very strange experience because such short moments of conversation can't nearly cover 6 years of change, and both people meet on a superficial basis, knowing they are both different now and have only the knowledge of each other's names and faces in common now, apart from memories long gone.
You just see hints of the toll that those 6 years have taken, and you can't be certain whether it was for good or bad. Or a bit of both as is often the case.

Then on my way home I met someone I used to play pen and paper roleplaying games with. Or rather he shouted at me, beer in hand, and we had a brief and fairly meaningless conversation as two individuals with intoxication in common. And then I came home, and the pain in my jaw was stinging as it usually is when I'm exhausted. Still, I was happy, and I slept extremely well that night.

Then today for the heck of it I started playing one of my "old" games. Or it wasn't really that old, but it had been a while since I played it. Dreamfall - The Longest Journey in all its visual grace on my fairly new 22 inch widescreen monitor (long live LG!). It took me back to the first time I completed it, playing almost non-stop since I ripped it out of the box and slammed it into my DVD-drive. Books may be able to trigger images and emotions, but once in a while it's all worth it to completely immerse myself in a computer game, eating the narrative in its pure, digital form. And I think now is the time to continue my adventure into Arcadia and Stark in that very special game that has earned a place among my favourites.

"You're about to take the first step on the longest journey of your life"

Soon it begins.

I would have done myself a greater service maintaining this blog, to somehow keep my thoughts together instead of as they are now, hanging in what seems a mass of close threads. But I will, damn me, keep using it in the time to come as a way of keeping myself on a leash.

I hope to keep this updated in the future especially when I start my studies very soon.
It's getting late though, and I rather fancy reading a bit than writing all my thoughts right now.
So, goodnight.