Not quite Irish Coffee, May 3rd, 2013

Short one today. My birthday weekend has begun! As has the whiskey consumption and - clearly - downer discussion worthy of my Irish ancestry. I kid! Iron Man 3 tomorrow! Whiskey! Poor judgement! Oh, and I also made another 10 seconds of rage video in anticipation of Iron Man 3, and if you haven't already, check out my review of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. See you Monday, people! (I'll be hungover)

Last night I had a small bout of game fatigue. More than likely the result of playing through the entirety of Blood Dragon and writing a review for it in less than 36 hours. And it wasn’t the game’s fault. At all. I was just done with playing.

But there’s a problem with that. I don’t know any other way to unwind. I’ve always just leaned back on the couch with a game controller in hand and let escapism massage my brain back to health. So, as opposed to doing something absurd like not playing a video game to relax (which would surely lead to some form of substance abuse), I asked myself what I really wanted to play.

I usually just reach for something current. In an effort to make this whole game writing affair “my line of work,” I spend all of my time trying to keep up with trends, playing games that are both relevant and timely, and I rarely dive backward into my collection save for some seriously retro romps in my ROM collection. But last night I skipped that stuff. I needed to relax. Again, I thought about what I really wanted to play.

In went Mirror’s Edge. In my darkest hour, when I didn’t think another game could be played, in goes a first person parkour game from five years ago. Jesus, was it five years ago? I’m turning 30 tomorrow and time is starting to turn into some kind of stew. No linearity at all, I just bump into memories like a fork hitting a chunk of potato. Anyway...

I thought I said "Don't look down?" Clearly you've looked down.

Mirror’s Edge was the last risk that EA ever took. It was an amazing experience precisely for that reason. Flawed? Certainly. That’s how experiments tend to work. Or you could call them the growing pains of a new genre. But Mirror’s Edge stands as proof that some really interesting things can happen when creativity and AAA money come together. Something there is a sore lack of in gaming just these five little years later.

All the creativity seems to rest with indie gaming, and while that’s certainly a great thing for gaming, I’d like to see the creativity return to the big budget game. But, gaming’s a business, so I don’t think that’ll be happening any time soon.