Tuesday, January 17, 2006

First, let’s get the important stuff out of the way.

I know what you’re thinking. Six solid days of silence can only mean I’ve purchased a one-way ticket to Gonesville, that plush vacation spot in blog country where journals go to die, fat with negligence and mimosas.

Wrong. It wasn’t a one-way ticket, in point of fact, it was a roundtrip ticket, and while I would like to move to Gonesville eventually, somewhere down the road, a timeshare will do just fine for now.

I’d like to believe you delved fully into the world of Kenta Cho and the entertainments he so willingly shares for free, one of which I described in detail a few days ago. In the likely event you haven’t tried Gunroar, however, the learned synopsis is shit explodes, often spectacularly. This is the case for most of his other releases, with the notable exception of Wok, a game suited for those more prone to peaceable activities like cooking.

Of course, explosions don’t tell the whole story of why I find the game compelling. A better reason would be the polish exuded in spades. There is a level of professionalism you wouldn’t expect in a free product, let alone some paid products, but maybe I’m simply a sucker for polish. Hell, I’ll sometimes wander into Home Depot, sit my ass down in the varnish aisle, and loudly demand service, such is my quest for calculated style.

The game is also therapeutic. There’s a sense of calm to be gleaned from gracefully negotiating your way through waves of bullets, all the while prioritizing what you need to shoot–it’s like a mutli-colored lesson in stress management. For me the lesson ends as soon as the multiplier reaches about 100, which is when I begin to vigorously sail into enemy gunfire.