Irish Coffee, March 29th, 2013

The forth wall dosen't exist this morning (if it ever did), so let's get right to it. Oh, and sorry about all the ads that were tastelessly festooned all over my blog. I was mucking around with my page design and forgot to turn adblock off. Should be much cleaner now.

Oh sweet jesus, why did I do it? I suppose that’s not important now, the damage is done. I am hungover. My hangover has a hangover. It feels like my brain is swaying around the inside of my skull on a pendulum. Just one big, viscous blob of gook trying desperately to mold itself into a usable object. I’ve cut down on my drinking, but one day a week I allow myself to get college-level shitfaced, and last night was my night. I couldn’t handle my apartment anymore, as I hadn’t left it in 6 days. Just writing and gaming, and not attending to my more carnal requirements. So I went out. Consumed half a bottle of Jameson. Explanations aside. Here I am, and I am viciously hungover.

Between the protein shakes and Aleve, I’ve been playing Bioshock Infinite. There’s something magnificent about gaming when hungover, provided your equilibrium can handle something fast paced. The escapism is never more pronounced that it is when your brain’s turned to jelly. It’s a far easier thing to suspend disbelief when your mind’s only half awake, I suppose. I don’t think I’m much past alpha sleep right now. Another symptoms of hangovers (at least my hangovers), is an emotional instability that would make Hera blush, and Bioshock Infinite is attacking my feels with extreme prejudice.

Very minor Bioshock Infinite spoiler ahead. It won’t ruin anything for you. 

You lovable bitch.

Elizabeth, the girl you’ve been tasked with rescuing and your A.I. companion for most of the game is one of the most - and I’m sorry for lack of a better word, here - "real" game characters I’ve ever come into contact with. This was, as I understand it, no easy task. While watching the PAXEast Bioshock Infinite panel last week, it was mentioned that the most difficult part of development was programming Elizabeth to interact with and “think” about the environment around her using a giant well of animations, reactions, and voice recordings. She doesn’t react to the world around her because it was scripted, the AI just organically and randomly reacts to points of interest (a painting, a view, a rose bush, a corpse) selected by the programmers.

Apparently, the degree of difficulty for creating her was such that they had a “team Liz” and according to Ken Levine many “dark nights” were spent considering whether they could scrap the character completely and still have a meaningful game. In much the same way I’m considering scrapping this blog post all together, because thinking this hard and staring at a screen with this intensity is making my hair hurt. It was the only thing that didn’t, up until now.

What all of this means for the emotionally vulnerable end user who had far too much Jameson last night is a level of attachment to a companion that is completely unparalleled. So unparalleled, in fact, that when I was separated from Liz after the first few hours with her, I actually missed her. And not just because she was no longer around to toss health and ammo my way during a fight. The whole thing is kind of creeping me out, if I’m honest. Thanks, Irrational, you’ve made it weird.

I’m going to stop typing now, as my throat and my keyboard feel like they’re made of granite. I’m also excited to dive back into Bioshock Infinite and get my companion back... I just realized the last second fiddle that had such an emotional impact on me: Companion Crate. But that was just projection, Elizabeth almost feels real. Again, weirding me out.

I need to do something masculine. Perhaps Hair of the Dog this hangover. I feel like I’m losing man points all over the place this morning. Wait, I got it:

Where the fuck did Elizabeth's tits go, huh? I want answers!